How Florida became America's leading religious-freedom defender under DeSantis: report

The Sunshine State ranks as the nation's number one defender of religious liberty out of all 50 states, according to the First Liberty Institute's fourth annual Religious Liberty in the States (RLS) index. 

For the first time, Florida tops the national rankings, followed by Montana, Illinois, Ohio and Mississippi. Illinois and Mississippi have garnered a spot in the top five every year since the index was first released by the First Liberty Institute's Center for Religion, Culture & Democracy (CRCD) in 2022.

The index uses a detailed scoring system measuring legal protections and ranking states based on the percentage of possible safeguards they have adopted. 

This year, with 2025's rankings, nearly 55 percentage points separates Florida from the last-place state, West Virginia, which has been last on the index for three years in a row.

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"We find that the states are laboratories of religious liberty where different protections for free exercise can be implemented and tested," CRCD Executive Director Jordan Ballor wrote in an introduction for the 2025 index. "One of the major goals of the RLS project is to raise awareness of what different states are doing. There are positive lessons to be learned from this experimentation, as states that have been at the vanguard of protecting religious liberty can serve as exemplars for states that have lagged behind."

The index's accompanying report points out that Florida "is an exemplar" for how state lawmakers can improve their protections around religious freedom. According to the report, the Sunshine State has improved nearly 20 percentage points since the first RLS index was released in 2022.

Much of this improvement came from legislation passed in 2023 strengthening religious protections that allow healthcare providers to refuse to participate in medical procedures or services, such as abortion or sterilization, based on their religious or moral beliefs. The report also pointed to Florida's passage of legislation in 2022 protecting houses of worship from discriminatory treatment during pandemics and other emergencies.

"Florida holds several #1 rankings, leading the nation in education, economy, and tourism – and now, Florida is #1 in religious liberty," said Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. "We’re grateful for this recognition from the First Liberty Institute, which has just named Florida the number one state in the nation for protecting religious liberty."

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"This year’s findings show clearly that states taking legislative action are pulling ahead," added Kelly Shackelford, president, CEO and chief counsel at First Liberty. "Under the leadership of Gov. DeSantis, Florida passed real laws that protect real people, and now the Sunshine State is the national leader in protecting religious liberty. It’s time for more states to follow Gov. DeSantis’s example and adopt strong religious liberty laws."

While Florida was pointed to in the RLS index as an "exemplar," the report stated that religious freedom was becoming increasingly "tenuous" in the blue state of Illinois. The move downward for the Land of Lincoln was not because the state repealed protections, but mainly because it has not implemented new protections that other states, like Florida, have, the report noted.

Per the 2025 RLS report, almost all of Illinois' protections came when the state was more conservative between 1934 and 1998.

In an effort to demonstrate the dangers of "complacency," the report also pointed to Colorado when Republicans "routinely" had control of both houses of the state legislature. The environment was friendly toward religious liberty, but lawmakers did not pass much in the way of protections, according to the report. It said the state's complacency contributed to Colorado's "abysmal" 43rd-place finish in the 2024 RLS rankings and 34th finish in the 2025 rankings released Monday.    

The First Liberty Institute said the results of the 2024 election may give some people the idea that passing laws protecting religious liberty is not as important, but the conservative Christian legal group warned this is "emphatically not the case," noting that data shows passing such laws is just as critical amid a "favorable" political climate.