Announcing RLS 2023’s Runner-up State: South Carolina

South Carolina has made major strides in protecting religious liberty, significantly improving its ranking in the Religious Liberty in the States (RLS) index. While the Palmetto State ranked in 38th place in 2022 with an unimpressive score of 31 percent, it has skyrocketed to second place in 2023 with a strong score of 67 percent.

This increase happened primarily because South Carolina adopted a general conscience provision for health-care providers. However, the state also saw some improvement in its score due to the new safeguards added to RLS in 2023.

In fact, South Carolina is one of only three states that made statutory changes to their laws since last year’s index. Rhode Island (48 percent) also improved by implementing protections for absentee voting. On the other hand, Connecticut (41 percent), eliminated the religious exemption from its childhood immunization requirement, resulting in a drop in its score.

RLS measures the freedom of people to practice religion in daily life based on state laws, not just their ability to gather for worship. With its high ranking and dramatic improvement in score, South Carolina is a clear example of how a state can improve its laws to protect religious freedom and ensure that all people have the right to practice their faith. Here are a couple of laws that explain South Carolina’s rise.

General Conscience Safeguard

South Carolina’s Medical Ethics and Diversity Act went into effect in June 2022 and specifies that medical practitioners (i.e., individuals), public and private health-care institutions, and health-care payers “have the right not to participate in or pay for any health-care service which violates the practitioner’s or entity’s conscience.”

This law includes strong health-care conscience protections that allow health-care providers to work based on their conscience, morals, or faith without facing repercussions. This includes individuals of any religion or no religion at all. In this year’s RLS, South Carolina’s statutes uphold the right for health-care providers, personnel, and payers to live according to their conscience, earning a score of 19 out of 20 for potential health-care safeguards. In the 2022 Index, South Carolina only earned 3 out of 20. The state’s improvement in this safeguard group accounts for the majority of its score improvement.

Ceremonial Use of Alcohol by Minors

One of the new safeguards included in the 2023 RLS is how states handle the use of alcohol by minors in religious ceremonies, such as communion services. This safeguard takes into account two important items that need to be protected. Firstly, it looks for protections for the clergy member who is serving alcohol within a religious ceremony, ensuring that they are not prosecuted for any minor (in this case, anyone under the age of 21) who is participating. Secondly, it also looks at whether the state is actively taking steps to protect the minor who is consuming alcohol, ensuring that there are no legal consequences.

South Carolina has taken steps to protect both the clergy member and the minor, ensuring that both parties are safeguarded and protected in this situation, so long as the alcohol was purchased legally. This safeguard allows religious ceremonies to be conducted in accordance with the traditions and preferences of the various congregations and communities throughout the state without fear of putting any of their members in legal jeopardy.

South Carolina’s Room for Improvement

While South Carolinians enjoy strong religious freedom protections in such areas as religious ceremonies, health-care, and protections for school-aged children, there a few areas where they are lacking. Currently, South Carolina has none of the five protections in the area of marriage and weddings that are tracked by RLS. This means that there are no protections for religious entities, public officials, or for-profit businesses who want to decline participation in a marriage or wedding for any reason of faith or conscience.

South Carolina is one of only nine states that does not allow for absentee voting due to religious holidays or other religious reasons. Of the forty-one states that do offer some protections in the area of voting, the most flexible approach is to allow citizens to vote absentee without providing a reason for why they cannot vote in person, such as the recent Rhode Island bill signed into law just last year.

These two areas account for the large gulf in score between the first-place finisher, Illinois (85 percent), and South Carolina (67 percent). This means that Illinois safeguards 25 percent more for its residents than South Carolina.

South Carolina made major strides in the last year by passing a general conscience safeguard for health-care, and it should continue to build on this success by seeking to extend religious freedom protections to its residents in the areas where it is lacking. In doing so, they can challenge Illinois’ dominant position at the top of the ranking in future years and continue to make South Carolina a welcoming state for all people.

Want to see where your state ranks? Check out the RLS index state ranking or access the executive summary to learn more.