According to the Center for Religion, Culture, and Democracy's (CRCD) latest Religious Liberty in the States (RLS) index -- a comparison of the legal safeguards of free exercise in each state -- Illinois scored 80%. Florida, Montana, Arkansas and tied Mississippi and Ohio complete the top five list.
CRCD Associate Director Paul Mueller says Illinois is not known for being especially respectful of religious beliefs, but good laws that govern the state were passed in the '50s, '60s, and '70s, when it was a conservative state.
"Once a law is in place, it's hard to remove that law," he notes. "So, this is a real lesson for conservative states today, states where you might think it's maybe not necessary to have religious liberty protection."
CRDC Director Mark David Hall says Wyoming, Vermont, California, Alaska, and West Virginia ranked last.
"West Virginia is at the bottom, and … it was at bottom last year, but it's made strides," he tells AFN. "Last year it scored 14% on its religious liberty protections. This year, it's at 25%."
With Illinois' score slipping from 85% to 80% since last year due to its failure to adopt new protections to prevent houses of worship from closing, he adds that every state has room for improvement.
"No states are above 80%," Hall relays. "There's no states that are protecting religious liberty perfectly or in every way possible."
He is looking for laws that protect churches from being forced to close during a pandemic to protections for Christian businesses and more.
RLS is a project of the CRCD, an initiative of First Liberty Institute.
