First Liberty Institute released its annual 'Religious Liberty in the States' report, which ranks states on how well they are doing on protecting religious liberty.
It is the First Amendment of the Constitution that protects religious freedom, with the Establishment Clause and Free Exercise Clause further safeguarding that right. A recent report by First Liberty Institute, the Texas-based nonprofit Christian conservative legal organization, shows which U.S. states are making good on that promise — with others falling behind. The nonprofit compared how the 50 states protect religious liberty through legislation.
The third annual 'Religious Liberty in the States' report ranked the states on an index based on 39 legal provisions that states can adopt to protect religious liberty. After determining whether states have the statutes, the protections are accumulated into 16 'safeguards,' which are averaged to produce one index score per state.
Therefore, we expect states to move up in the annual index ratings based on how actively they choose to protect religious liberty.' Illinois is again considered the No. 1 state for religious liberty in this report, but its score slipped from 85% to 80% due to its failure to adopt new protections to prevent houses of worship from closing, the organization noted.
Following the Prairie State, Florida, Montana and Arkansas are listed among the top. Mississippi capped off the top five best states. 'Now is the time for every state to do all they can to protect our first freedom,' said Kelly Shackelford, First Liberty Institute's president, CEO and chief counsel, in the release. 'The Religious Liberty in the States index empowers citizens with the knowledge they need to push to ensure their religious liberties are more fully protected.
First Liberty noted on its website, 'Many states are making big improvements, and the data clearly shows it. But there’s still plenty of room for progress.' It added, 'The majority of states are doing less than half of what they could be doing. Only 12 states had 50% or higher of the religious liberty protections. As the report, most states on average adopt less than half of the safeguards that protect religious liberty.
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