Two broad reviews of the state of religious liberty in the United States were released yesterday. Becket Fund for Religious Liberty released the 6th edition of its Religious Freedom Index: American Perspectives on the First Amendment (full text). The 119-page report is based on an online poll of a nationally representative sample of 1000 American adults conducted by an independent research company. The report says in part:
The survey consists of 21 annually repeating questions that cover a broad range of topics, from the rights of religious people to practice their respective faiths to the role of government in protecting religious beliefs. The responses to these questions are broken down into six dimensions: 1) Religious Pluralism, 2) Religion and Policy, 3) Religious Sharing, 4) Religion in Society, 5) Church and State, and 6) Religion in Action....
Across multiple questions in our Index, one message rings loud and clear: Americans deeply value their First Amendment freedoms, even in the face of tough, controversial issues....
We are pleased to report that political division did not seem to negatively impact Americans’ convictions about the importance of religion and religious liberty.... Americans also report being more accepting of people of faith and more appreciative of their contributions than ever before. Encouragingly, both people of faith as a whole and non-Christian people of faith reported feeling more accepted in society than in 2023.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops yesterday released its 2025 annual report on The State of Religious Liberty in the United States (full text) (Executive Summary). The 83-page Report, which reviews developments at the national level in 2024 in Congress, the Courts and the Executive Branch, says in part:
... [B]ecause control of the two chambers of Congress was divided, most bills that threatened religious liberty—that is to say, immunity from coercion in religious matters—did not move forward. Legislation aiming to increase access to in vitro fertilization (IVF) was introduced in 2024. The most significant threats to religious liberty at the federal level came in the form of finalized regulations by federal agencies, such as the Section 1557 rule, which implements the nondiscrimination provision of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). These rules heavily focused on imposing requirements regarding abortion, sexual orientation, and gender identity....
The five areas of critical concern—threats and opportunities—for religious liberty are:
- The targeting of faith-based immigration service
- The persistence of elevated levels of antisemitic incidents
- IVF mandates, which represent a significant threat to religious freedom, while the national discussion of IVF represents an opportunity for Catholics to share Church teaching and advocate for human dignity
- The scaling back of gender ideology in law
- Parental choice in education, one of the longest-running areas of concern for American Catholics
