Op-Ed by The Family Foundation and published in Kentucky Today.
How important is religious liberty in our great Commonwealth of Kentucky? According to First Liberty Institute’s Center for Religion, Culture & Democracy’s 2026 Religious Liberty in the States Index, Kentucky ranks 20th in the nation based on a review of 50 safeguards that measures the constitutional and statutory religious freedom protections in all 50 states.
Religious liberty matters to all residents of Kentucky, even those without religious affiliations, because it is connected to broad civil liberties including free speech, parental rights, academic freedom, and freedom of assembly. It shapes the relationship between citizens and government by limiting the government’s power—a core safeguard for our constitutional freedoms. If the government can regulate belief and conscience, these constitutional freedoms erode over time.
Kentucky has many of the 50 safeguards in place, but there are several important protections that must be addressed to move the state further up in the ranking to more effectively protect Kentuckians’ most foundational freedom.
Representative TJ Roberts filed HB 170 to strengthen religious liberty protections in the Commonwealth. This bill updates Kentucky’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) to fortify the religious liberty protections from oppression from the government. HB 170 brings clarity to the law, which in its current state is vulnerable to misinterpretation and renders it ineffective in protecting the free exercise of one’s religious beliefs.
One instance where HB 170 would have prevented government infringement on religious liberty is the situation involving Sunrise Children’s Services’ contract with the state. In 2021, Gov. Andy Beshear sought to cancel the organizations contract unless Sunrise agreed to abandon its position that marriage is the union of a man and a woman, something that would directly conflict with its Christian mission. A stronger RFRA would have likely deterred the governor’s actions, saving Sunrise hundreds of thousands in legal fees. HB170 died in committee this year but needs to be resurrected in 2027 and passed into law for all Kentuckians.
The Kentucky State Senate has passed a medical conscience bill the past three sessions, but it has yet to be considered in the House. Our dedicated healthcare workers often face a growing number of procedures that involve life, death, and biological transformations presenting moral dilemmas for those who hold religious convictions. They don’t shed those convictions when entering a medical facility but may be pressured to choose between their career or their faith. This state-level conscience protection bill for the healthcare industry, similar to the one in Arkansas, respects and protects the rights of medical professionals who for religious reasons morally object to certain procedures and should never have to why escalate their objections to the federal level for exemptions. This important bill must pass the House to protect healthcare workers from being forced by the government to violate their moral and religious beliefs.
Currently, there are no safeguards for licensed counselors or therapists. As a result, the state can prohibit these professionals from offering strategies based on religious principles or restrict them to narrowly defined options. In 2019, Colorado adopted a law prohibiting licensed counselors from providing practice or treatment to minors, which was defined as any practice or treatment that attempts to change an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity away from same sex attractions. In Chiles v Salazar, the Supreme Court ruled that the Colorado law violated the counselor’s free speech rights. In line with this decision, states should follow the example of Tennessee and Florida and pass laws that affirmatively protect the free speech rights of counselors and therapists.
In 2025, nearly 27,000 weddings were conducted in Kentucky. However, clergy members, public officials, and for-profit businesses that provide wedding services are all at risk if they have moral objections to weddings that conflict with religious beliefs. Tennessee again is an example of a state that has passed laws to protect public officials and clergy members from being sanctioned or required to solemnize marriages that violate their conscience rights. It’s time for Kentucky to do the same.
Nearly $700,000,000 was spent on weddings in Kentucky last year, but state law still has no safeguards for faith-based businesses that provide goods or services for marriage ceremonies or wedding celebrations if there is a moral or religious conflict to doing so. Two Supreme Court cases, Masterpiece Cakeshop, LTD v Colorado Civil Rights Commission (2018) and 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis (2023), offer some First Amendment protections to wedding vendors, but a state law protecting the state’s bakers, photographers, florists, and other creative professionals could prevent years of frustrating litigation. Mississippi and Arkansas have such enacted laws in place.
The people of Kentucky deserve the right to live out their faith in both their private and public lives without compromise. It is incumbent on lawmakers in Frankfort to work diligently to protect those rights and to pass laws to ensure those protections are upheld. Kentucky can be number one in the rankings, but it will take the work of all of us to achieve this worthy goal.