It may not be surprising that Illinois dropped three spots in a new survey of the states and how well they protect religious freedom. What’s probably surprising in Baptist circles is that Illinois was in first place in the first place.
A conservative legal organization ranks states’ legal safeguards of religious freedoms based on 47 measures to protect actions of conscience. The annual report by the Center for Religion, Culture, and Democracy at the First Liberty Institute shows Illinois lost 11 percentage points, falling from 81% 2024 and 85% in 2023. Still, the state ranked third overall at 68.8%.
First Liberty Institute was so surprised by Illinois’ ranking as “America’s free exercise leader” in its first two surveys that they commissioned a graduate law student to study the origin of such remarkable safeguards of religious freedoms in an otherwise liberal state.
“Although still among the top five states, Illinois fell from its first-place position in [the Religious Liberty in the States survey in] 2023 and 2024. It now protects only 69% of the safeguards we consider, whereas in 2022 it protected 81% of them,” researchers Mark David Hall and Paul D. Mueller wrote. “We add new religious liberty protections to the index as we discover them, as long as they have been implemented in at least one state.”
Florida is now in first place (74.6%) and Montana is second (70.6%) in RLS 2025. Ohio, Mississippi, Arkansas, and South Carolina ranked just below third-place Illinois.
While they blamed some of Illinois’ drop on the addition of new measurements, researchers concluded that religious freedom “now seems more tenuous in the Land of Lincoln.”
The team surveys such measures as euthanasia refusal, health insurance mandates, ceremonial use of alcohol by minors, designating clergy as mandatory reporters, foster parent requirements, absentee voting for religious reasons, and allowing clergy to refuse participation in weddings they object to on religious grounds (e.g. same-sex marriages). The team also surveys whether public officials or private companies are allowed non-participation based on their own religious beliefs.
“Florida is an exemplar for how state legislators can improve their state’s protection of religious liberty,” the report said, advancing from 58% of the safeguards in 2022 to 75% today. “Most of its improvement derived from legislation strengthening its medical conscience protections in 2023 and legislation protecting houses of worship from discriminatory treatment during pandemics and other emergencies in 2022.”
While Montana more than doubled its score in three years jumping into second place, the bottom of the list is mostly unchanged. West Virginia ranked last for the third year in a row (19.6%). Wyoming is in next-to-last place (23.3%) followed by Michigan (27.4%), Nebraska (29.1%), and Vermont (29.3%).
While some states made strides in legislative protections in the three years since the survey began, RLS pointed out that Illinois failed to implement new religious freedom protections enacted in other states in that period. “Almost all of Illinois’s religious liberty protections were adopted between 1934 and 1998,” the report stated.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has pursued new laws that advance school choice, designate churches as essential services in case of emergency, and created a school chaplain program.
Illinois’ surprising history
The report made three overall conclusions: (1) The states differ widely in their protections of religious freedoms, as evidenced by the scores in the top five and bottom five rankings. (2) The majority of states (38) are doing less than half what they could to offer such safeguards. And (3) all states could improve their protection of religious freedom with passage of additional measures.
Among safeguards not protected in Illinois are “no religious discrimination in foster parent eligibility” and “houses of worship protected from closing.”
Illinois’ surprising placement at the top of the list in 2023 and 2024 prompted the Institute to commission a study. Regent University School of Law student Caleb Ridings researched legislative floor debates dating back a hundred years. He found that most legal safeguards were enacted prior to 2000.
From the timing of actions and arguments in the Illinois General Assembly, Ridings concluded that “Illinois is a state that is highly responsive to national trends and major changes in the Supreme Court.” He cited Illinois laws protecting the “right of conscience” that came on the heels of legalization of abortion by Roe v. Wade in 1971 and same-sex marriage by Obergefell v. Hodges in 2015. “Illinois clearly has an active legislature that considers free exercise issues in the midst of active national discussions,” Ridings wrote in his research paper called “The Illinois Antinomy.” (Antinomy means paradox, a contradiction in beliefs.)
But why would Illinois bolster religious freedoms in relation to such liberal court rulings? This question growing importance as Illinois now routinely “enshrines” liberal national laws. Ridings points to the influence of the Catholic church across the decades “which springs throughout the legislative record.” He offered House arguments over mandatory reporting involving the confessional and serving communion wine to minors as examples to consideration for religious exemptions, as many legislators respectfully referenced their Catholic faith in floor debate.
“One may intuit from Illinois’ performance that states who consider the practices of religious minorities (such as Catholics) offer more robust standards,” Ridings surmised.
Illinois also showed that religious safeguards need not be a hyper-partisan issue, Ridings said, as many were passed by a Democrat-majority senate, and a couple of them passed unanimously. “It is only in the past 20 years that votes in this area started resembling pure party line,” he wrote, specifically over healthcare and marriage conscience.
“If other states took away from Illinois’ story that religious liberty needn’t be relegated to only one side of the aisle, the next decade may see a flourishing of free exercise across the nation from both the conservative and progressive states,” Ridings’ report concluded.
Illinois would do well to learn from its own history. Ridings expressed concern that Illinois’ concern for religious freedom safeguards is slipping. First Liberty Institute urged state legislators and citizens in all states to visit their website to see measures their own states could enact.
—Eric Reed, with additional reporting by Christian Post