The Center for Religion, Culture & Democracy (CRCD) and First Liberty Institute have released their fourth annual “Religious Liberty in the States Report 2025,” a comprehensive analysis of legal protections for religious freedom across all 50 U.S. states. The report, which has significantly expanded its scope since its inception, aims to provide a detailed understanding of how states protect religious liberty and to serve as a resource for legislators, activists, and citizens.
This year’s report measures 47 distinct legal protections, organized into 20 safeguards, nearly doubling the scope from 29 items and 11 safeguards in 2022. The findings reveal a diverse landscape of religious liberty protections, with significant variations in scores among states, underscoring the concept of states as
“laboratories of religious liberty.”
Key Findings: State Rankings and Trends
The 2025 report highlights a wide disparity in religious liberty protections across the nation, with a nearly 55 percentage point difference between the highest and lowest-ranking states. Florida has emerged as the top-ranked state in 2025, protecting 75% of the measured religious liberty safeguards. This marks a significant improvement for Florida, which was ranked sixth in 2022.
Conversely, West Virginia remains in last place for the third consecutive year, with a score of 19.6%. Despite this, West Virginia did make some progress by passing a Religious Freedom Restoration Act in 2023.
Montana stands out as the most improved state since 2022, with a 30.8% increase in its score, largely due to recent legislation protecting the conscience rights of healthcare workers. South Carolina also showed significant improvement with a 29.6% increase, followed by Florida with a 16.6% increase.
On the other hand, Mississippi has seen the most significant decline since 2022, with a -15.4% change, despite its strong fifth-place finish this year. This decline is attributed to its lack of newly measured protections that other states have implemented. Kansas and Pennsylvania also experienced declines of -15.0% and -12.3% respectively.
Evolution of Safeguards
The report emphasizes the continuous expansion of measured protections. In 2025, eight new items and four new safeguards were added, bringing the total to 47 items and 20 safeguards. These new additions include medical conscience protections related to abortion remains and euthanasia, protections for counselors, and laws prohibiting discrimination by financial and insurance companies based on religious commitments. Additionally, new items protect parental rights to opt children out of sexual education, student athletes’ right to wear religious attire, and foster parents’ rights regarding sexual orientation or gender identity beliefs.
The safeguards are categorized into five areas: Government, Health Care, Economic Life, Religious Life, and Family and Education. While health care comprises over 50% of the items, it accounts for 35% of the index weight due to the close relation of many healthcare items. The government category, despite having only three items, accounts for 15% of the index weight.
Implications and Recommendations
The CRCD highlights that even top-ranking states like Florida have room for improvement, missing ten of the specific protections measured. The report serves as a valuable tool for states to identify areas where their religious liberty protections can be strengthened. The authors encourage all states to consider adopting a Religious Freedom Restoration Act, noting that North Dakota (2023), West Virginia (2023), Iowa (2024), Utah (2024), and Georgia (2025) have recently passed such acts.
The report also addresses concerns that religious liberty protections might allow harm to others, clarifying that this is not the intent or position of religious liberty advocacy groups. It acknowledges that in rare instances, governments may have a compelling interest in preventing actions based on religious beliefs, but these instances are rare and do not apply to the protections measured in the report.
Source:
[1] Religious Liberty in the States Report 2025. Available at: https://religiouslibertyinthestates.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/Religious_Liberty_in_the_States_Report-2025.pdf