RELIGIOUS LIBERTY IN THE STATES

The Center for Religion, Culture & Democracy’s Religious Liberty in the States (RLS) is a project measuring legal safeguards for religious liberty across the United States. It allows office holders, community leaders, citizens, and scholars to compare state constitutions and statutory laws with respect to certain legal safeguards intended to protect citizens’ free exercise rights.

RLS is an index that compares the legal safeguards of free exercise in each state and ranks the 50 states accordingly. The fourth year of the project is available in July of 2025, and you can watch the livestream of that event here (July 14, 2025, 10:00 a.m. ET).

The presentation will give an overview of the project and unveil the 2025 state rankings. The launch event includes comments from Kelly Shackelford (President, CEO and Chief Counsel, First Liberty Institute) and Dr. Mark David Hall (Director, RLS). RLS is a project of First Liberty’s Center for Religion, Culture & Democracy (CRCD).