Now Is the Time to Focus on Religious Liberty in Your State

Many Catholics are rightfully excited about Donald Trump’s victory, but do not allow Trump’s victory to become an excuse for complacency. Trump’s win is not evidence of the American people’s repentance or virtue. And even if Trump does everything right during his second term, he can only do so much. Not every decision gets made in Washington. Decisions made in your state capital and city hall have a far greater impact on your day-to-day life. And that’s a good thing! 

The Catholic Church teaches us that, whenever possible, matters should be handled by the smallest, lowest, or least-centralized competent authority rather than by a higher and more distant one—the principle of subsidiarity. In your grade school civics class, you might have heard that referred to as Federalism. Since there were only a few Catholic founders, the decision to organize our country this way was likely done less out of obedience to Holy Mother Church than out of the recognition of subsidiarity’s natural benefits. 

In a country as large and diverse as ours, subsidiarity is necessary for us to be able to live in peace with one another. So, we should be expending more of our energy on local, rather than national, politics—whether keeping ourselves informed or getting actively engaged. Unfortunately, most people’s efforts are prioritized the other way around.

Religious liberty, now under threat as the tolerance of a bygone political era wanes, has become an increasingly significant issue. It is becoming more and more common for Christians—or anyone with traditional values—to be treated with open contempt and hostility. The coming Trump administration will be much less likely to discriminate against Christians than the alternative; but we cannot know our future rulers’ eventual intentions (and I doubt they’ll stay friendly). Therefore, now is the time to focus on religious liberty protections in our states.

Regulations surrounding religious nonprofits are a crucial, but often overlooked, protection for (or hindrance to) religious liberty. Most lay apostolates are nonprofits, which are subject to greater regulation than for-profit organizations. And many nonprofits, especially religious ones, focus more on their mission than on their registrations, reports, filings, or other legal compliance. That poses a real risk because a hostile government could, if it wanted to, aggressively audit religious nonprofits to drive them out of operation—either by finding code violations punishable by fines or revocation of tax-exempt status (even if only due to innocent ignorance), or by subjecting them to a bureaucratic death by one thousand cuts.  Many nonprofits focus more on their mission than on their legal compliance. That poses a real risk because a hostile government could aggressively audit religious nonprofits to drive them out of operation.Tweet This

Fortunately, the Napa Legal Institute was founded, in part, to help fill that gap. It has been raising awareness, providing resources, and developing a network of like-minded attorneys to support religious nonprofits. Napa Legal also monitors state laws across the country and recently released its second annual Faith and Freedom Index, which compares fourteen types of state laws across the country on their friendliness (or lack thereof) toward religious nonprofits—from religious freedom restoration acts and employment laws to charitable registration laws and tax exemptions.

You may have expected to hear that overall top scorers include Indiana, Alabama, Kansas, Texas, and Mississippi; but looking at their nationwide map, there’s a lot of work to do. Many conservative states—like West Virginia, South Carolina, Wyoming, Tennessee, and Ohio—score poorly on Religious Freedom, while liberal states—like Oregon, California, Delaware, and Vermont, as well as Washington, D.C.—score well on Regulatory Freedom.

Since the publication of last year’s Index, Iowa, Utah, and Nebraska made major improvements by passing religious freedom restoration acts, laws that protect the free exercise of religion against so-called neutral laws that indirectly burden religious exercise. To date, 28 states have enacted these laws (under various names). Most red (and some blue) states have them, but Ohio, Wyoming, Wisconsin, Georgia, Alaska, and North Carolina still have not yet enacted their own religious freedom restoration act.

Looking at the different maps, one can make out regional similarities to a certain extent, but many outliers are also apparent (good and bad). Divided as our country might be, the protection of religious liberty still has bipartisan appeal. Parsing their “state rankings at a glance” chart, one sees other interesting dichotomies: California ranks 9th for Regulatory Freedom and 43rd for Religious Freedom; Wyoming ranks third for Regulatory Freedom and 44th for Religious Freedom; Alabama ranks first for Religious Freedom but 46th for Regulatory Freedom. 

Reviewing the results, I don’t think any state scores that well. Napa’s rankings are derived from percentage scores they calculate for each state based on how good or bad a state’s laws are compared with best practices. Alabama, with the highest Freedom of Religion score, only has an 86 percent. Indiana, with the highest Freedom of Regulation score, has only an 81 percent—the best score was a B! Nobody should be smugly resting on their laurels. There is a lot of room for improvement in a lot of places. 

One factor pulling down many states, likely of particular interest to Crisis readers, is whether or not a state has a “Blaine Amendment” in its constitution—named for Sen. James G. Blaine of Maine, who championed an amendment to the U.S. Constitution to prohibit sectarian schools from receiving state funding. The movement was driven by deep anti-Catholic animus. Back then, prayer and religious instruction in public schools were still constitutional—but the public schools were run by Protestants. As a result, Catholics established their own schools to prevent their children from being indoctrinated, to the horror of the intolerant majority (sound familiar?). The federal amendment failed, but many states adopted local versions. 

In the intervening years, a few states repealed or watered down their Blaine Amendments, but only in 2022, with Carson v. Makin, did the Supreme Court render them essentially unenforceable. That was a victory, but these hateful laws remain on the books in a supermajority of states. If the courts backslide, Blaine Amendments could become enforceable again, now to be wielded against Catholics by the woke.

How does your state stack up? Does your constitution have an anti-Catholic Blaine Amendment? How many burdens does your state put upon religious nonprofits? Do you run a lay apostolate? It might be time to double-check your filings…

It’s hard for nonprofit laws or state funding regulations to grab headlines, but they undergird the Christian evangelical mission in the United States—whether by the Church herself or by the countless lay apostolates she inspires.

While federal problems seem intractable, things still happen in the states. Far less attention is paid to the statehouse or city hall than that Swamp on the Potomac. The permanent governing class is myopically focused on D.C., several mega-cities, national issues, and foreign wars—to the exclusion of local issues and the normal concerns of ordinary Americans (a major reason for Trump’s popularity). 

Far too many of the faithful follow their foes’ lead by closely watching national headlines while paying little attention to what’s going on in their own backyards. But that’s where our efforts should be focused! We have home field advantage in our home states. We can each know our own community, its people, and its issues far better than we can understand intrigues in Washington—or than the people in Washington can ever understand us. They live there, we live here.

With the election over, we can take stock of things and reassess our priorities. Perhaps we should be more focused on matters close to home. We cannot be complacent. There is a lot of work to be done, and Trump’s victory has created forward momentum that can be harnessed! I don’t know if America is still classified as Mission Territory, but it ought to be. We can and should be actively involved in apostolates ourselves. And we would do well to ask our state governments to lighten religious nonprofits’ burdens to free more time for their mission work, which we so desperately need.