The First Liberty Institute has released its 2026 Religious Liberty in the States Index, an annual report that evaluates how well each state protects religious freedom. The index examines dozens of legal safeguards across government, health care, economic life, religious practice, family, and education to measure how well states protect the free exercise of religion.

The news for Illinois is mixed.

Our state remains one of the strongest in the nation for religious liberty, ranking 5th overall with a score of 70%. While that is certainly encouraging, it also represents a continued decline. Illinois ranked #1 in both 2023 and 2024, slipped to #3 in 2025, and has now fallen to #5 in the nation.

Illinois’s lower ranking reflects two realities. Other states have enacted new protections for religious liberty, parental rights, and rights of conscience, while Illinois lawmakers have increasingly moved in the opposite direction by weakening several of these important safeguards.

Over the past decade, Illinois has adopted a number of policies that have usurped parental rights and diminished conscience protections, including:

• 2015: Eliminated parental consent requirements for minors seeking certain mental health services.

• 2017: Expanded protections allowing minors to receive gender-related counseling without parental knowledge.

• 2019: Enacted the Reproductive Health Act (Public Act 101-0013), requiring many private health insurance plans to cover abortion while providing no broad religious exemption for secular employers with moral objections.

• 2021: Repealed the Parental Notice of Abortion Act, ending a parental notification requirement that had existed for more than two decades.

• 2021: Amended the Health Care Right of Conscience Act to allow employers, government agencies, and institutions to enforce COVID-19 vaccination, testing, and mask requirements despite conscience objections.

• 2023: Expanded juvenile justice provisions under the SAFE-T Act that further reduced parental oversight in certain interactions between minors and the justice system.

• 2026: Passed and signed into law HB 4834, eliminating parental notification requirements when minors receive transgender hormone treatments or abortion-inducing drugs such as mifepristone and misoprostol.
• 2026: Passed and signed into law HB 5295, prevents abortion-related information to be made available to out-of-state entities, thereby essentially covering sexual crimes against minor girls who can be brought to Illinois for abortions and no one would be the wiser; not parents, law enforcement, or medical professionals.
• 2026: Passed and signed into law SB 1560, requires students in grades 3-12 to be screened for mental health by those who believe a boy can become a girl. In addition, HB 4714 is on the Governor’s desk awaiting his signature. It requires LGBTQ involvement in those doing the screening. Also on the Governor’s desk is HB 4536, where teachers will be trained in state-approved mental health standards. Will parents be told they can opt their child out from this invasive program?
• 2026: Passed and signed into law SB 3341, allows minors to receive contraceptive services and supplies without parent’s consent.

The 2026 index evaluates 50 distinct legal protections, grouped into 20 safeguards, that states can adopt to protect religious liberty in everyday life—from education and health care to family law, employment, and religious practice. Each state’s score reflects the percentage of these safeguards currently in place.

But based on these recent intrusions into parental rights, it wouldn’t be surprising if Illinois’ status was ranked much lower in the very near future.

As Dr. Mark David Hall, director of the Religious Liberty in the States project, explained:

“States have always served as laboratories of liberty, and this year’s results show why that matters. Arkansas’s rise to the top of the index demonstrates that state lawmakers can take concrete action to protect what America’s founders called ‘the sacred right of conscience.’ These safeguards help ensure that Americans are free to live out their faith in public life, not only within the walls of a house of worship.”

Dr. Paul D. Mueller, the project’s associate director, noted that this year’s rankings underscore how quickly states can improve—or fall behind:

“Arkansas moved from sixth to first, and Tennessee moved from tenth to second, because both states adopted meaningful protections for religious liberty. With this index, citizens and legislators can see where their state is doing well, where it still has room to improve, and which existing laws could help them better protect the right of conscience.”

Illinois residents can celebrate that the Land of Lincoln remains among the nation’s best at protecting religious liberty. At the same time, safeguarding religious liberty and parental rights requires constant vigilance—we must defend and strengthen these foundational rights so the next generation inherits them intact.

Elections have consequences. Christian conservatives and people of faith cannot assume that future members of the Illinois General Assembly will uphold our God-given rights of conscience, religious liberty, and parental authority. In fact, recent years have shown just how quickly these fundamental freedoms can be chipped away.

That is why we must pray faithfully, vote wisely, and speak boldly. We must also support and elect leaders who will defend these essential liberties—not only for ourselves, but for our children and grandchildren. The preservation of religious liberty and parental rights will depend on the convictions and actions of today’s citizens.

As George Washington wisely observed, “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports.” If we expect future generations to enjoy the blessings of religious liberty, we must pray faithfully, vote wisely, and support leaders who will defend these God-given freedoms.

This content was composed and finalized by the author.
IFA staff and AI tools were used for proofing and clarity.