Announcing RLS 2024’s #1 State: Illinois

Illinois has once again earned the highest score in the Religious Liberty in the States (RLS) 2024 rankings, maintaining its position as the top state for protecting religious liberty. Despite this achievement, Illinois’ overall score has dropped slightly from the previous year, highlighting an area where the state can further improve its protections.

The Land of Lincoln earned a score of 80 percent, a notable achievement that underscores the state’s comprehensive approach to safeguarding religious freedom. Illinois’ robust legal framework includes a wide array of state laws designed to protect the free exercise of religion for its residents. These protections ensure that individuals can practice their faith freely and without undue interference.

This score is more than three times higher than the lowest state, West Virginia (25 percent). Illinois is seven percentage points higher than the second state, Florida (73 percent), and is 14 percentage points higher than the third state, Montana (66 percent).

The Impact of New Safeguards

The RLS 2024 report introduced five new items to its index, reflecting the evolving landscape of religious liberty protections. Illinois already had four of these new items in place:

• Health Insurance Mandate Exemption for Sterilizations
• Health Insurance Mandate Exemption for Abortions
• Excused Absences for School-Aged Students for Religious Instruction
• Excused Absences for College and University Students for Religious Reasons

However, Illinois does not have a statute protecting houses of worship from closing (the fifth new item added this year), which contributed to the slight drop in the state’s overall score from last year. This protection is relatively new on the national landscape, coming about in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Eighteen states quickly passed statutes that prohibit governments from treating houses of worship differently than similarly situated businesses. Florida and Montana were among them, but Illinois was not.

If Illinois wishes to stay at the top of the rankings in future years, it should consider implementing this safeguard, as well as any others it lacks, because many other states are actively considering legislation to improve their religious liberty protections.

Illinois’ Future

Almost all of the state’s religious liberty protections were adopted between 1934 and 1998, when the state was far more conservative. For example, Republican presidential candidates won the state in eight of ten elections between 1952 and 1988, but they haven’t come close in the last eight elections. Also, Democrats have controlled both houses of the state legislature since 2003.

A recent study commissioned by the CRCD demonstrates that Illinois is resting on its laurels.  Indeed, the state legislature has recently attempted to remove protections adopted earlier, and it has been less likely to adopt new protections.

Despite the slight drop in its score, Illinois remains a model for other states to emulate as they strive to improve their religious liberty safeguards. One of the most important lessons from the state is that lawmakers ought to pass religious liberty protections when they have the chance, and those protections will continue to benefit the residents of their state even if the political winds change as they seem to have in Illinois. Only time will tell if the Prairie State will maintain their top spot for another year or fall to a state that is more actively protecting religious liberty.

Want to see where your state ranks? Check out the RLS index state ranking or access the report to learn more.