This safeguard captures any religious exemptions by states for clergy or religious organizations’ participation in or facilitation of marriage or wedding celebrations that would conflict with the religious beliefs of the person or organization. Additionally, this safeguard includes the protections available for these religious entities should they refuse, specifically whether tax exempt status or more is protected. Checkmarks below indicate which entities are protected and if any consequences are explicitly precluded in the law. (For more about data collection within the Marriage & Weddings group, please see the details here.)
Note on citations:
Where multiple laws are cited, the link is for the first listed. To find subsequent laws -or- in cases where a state's laws are not possible to link to directly, use the citation number to manually navigate to the statute of interest. For more precise information on citations as well as our reasoning behind each score, download the full data set which includes additional research notes.