...so the thought I'm having is at the time, King George III came from the House of Hanover which was distinctly Lutheran. That created an interesting situation when considering how he ruled as the head of the Church of England since it suggested he was neither pro Anglo-Catholic High Church nor pro-Calvinist Low Church. His sense of religious self-determination wasn't individually based either, but nationally based as a follow-through of the Treaty of Westphalia following the 30 Years War. Furthermore, he supported the Quebec Act before the Revolution, so it's clear he wasn't anti-Catholic. Even stranger, Thomas Paine described King George as a Jesuit in
Common Sense despite how the Jesuits were disbanded a few years before that was published. Even stranger than that is how John Caroll, the only Catholic signer of the Declaration of Independence, maintained the Jesuit Order in the United States during the Revolution after the Order was disbanded.
...
In turn, Gordon's Protestant Association seemed to be overreacting naively such that a double negative was at hand. Ordinarily, yes, the oppression of Catholics would be unjustified, but "liberating" Catholics just to fight a war they didn't belong in would be backwards. Plenty of rioters in addition to Gordon himself didn't support continuing the fight against the Revolution either, and the Revolution happened to afford the French and Indian War which was sparked from the Calvinist low church Lee Family from the Ohio Company of Virginia trying to settle the Ohio Valley in Catholic New France. If anything, Calvinists were opposing Catholics having to fight a war to enforce affording a war of Calvinists against Catholics.
What frustrates all of this is how Gordon lost his audience with King George and how Parliament dismissed his petition when his gathering confronted the House of Commons. Peaceful means were employed only to be rejected. The political situation seemed full of doublespeak as if Gordon was trying to appear flexible in order to restore his political career as a prior MP who criticized all sides in Parliament whether in government or opposition, but Parliament rallied against him.
Police weren't deployed, local Irish neighborhoods were attacked, and the army ultimately had to come out. The constitutional monarchy of Britain seemed jeopardized which ironically vilified the concern that Catholics would bring absolute monarchy back to Britain.
The conclusion I'd make is the riots seemed justified, but on accident, not on purpose.
(Reading more about the riots now here:
Brad A. Jones, "In Favour of Popery": Patriotism, Protestantism, and the Gordon Riots in the Revolutionary British Atlantic, Journal of British Studies, Vol. 52, No. 1 (JANUARY 2013), pp. 79-102
www.jstor.org
)