Here’s something that should make your blood boil. For decades, religious institutions — churches, synagogues, faith-based schools, charities that hold communities together — have been locked out of public programs that welcome practically every other private organization on the planet. These institutions pay into the system like everyone else. Their members’ tax dollars fund these programs. They just aren’t allowed to benefit from them. Because they’re religious.
The Supreme Court has said clearly, more than once, that this is unconstitutional. The 2022 Carson v. Makin decision didn’t leave wiggle room. Yet hundreds of discriminatory “sectarian” exclusions remain cemented into state codes across the country. Nobody repealed them. Nobody rewrote them. Religious Americans have been dragged through lawsuit after lawsuit to vindicate rights the Constitution already guarantees. It’s expensive. It’s exhausting. And it shouldn’t be necessary.
From the Daily Wire:
Over the past decade, the Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that the First Amendment prohibits excluding religious institutions from public benefit programs. Yet some states have resisted this clear constitutional mandate. The Court has agreed to hear yet another case involving rules that allegedly discriminate against religious schools seeking to participate in Colorado’s universal pre-K program.
Other states, fortunately, are embracing the First Amendment, revising their laws and regulations to put religious institutions on equal footing with other private entities. In recent months, Oklahoma, Florida, and Iowa have taken meaningful legislative or administrative steps to dismantle unconstitutional laws and regulations. These states should be applauded for recognizing that they cannot treat religious Americans as second-class participants in public life.
So no, this isn’t just talk. Three states are translating constitutional principles into real policy — and giving the rest of the country a blueprint for what serious conservative governance looks like.
Oklahoma sets the pace
Give credit where it’s due. Oklahoma hasn’t just nibbled around the edges — the state has mounted a full-scale offensive against anti-religious discrimination in its own legal code. In 2023, lawmakers passed legislation declaring that sectarian exclusions impose a substantial burden on religious liberty. That alone was significant.
Then Governor Kevin Stitt raised the stakes. In 2025, he issued an executive order directing every state agency to hunt down and eliminate laws, regulations, and policies that shut out religious individuals and institutions from public programs. Not a suggestion. A directive. Most recently, Oklahoma repealed specific “sectarian” funding restrictions that had barred religious organizations from programs run by the Oklahoma Historical Society and Arts Council. Methodical, thorough, and long overdue.
Florida and Iowa step up
Oklahoma isn’t carrying this torch alone. Last month, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier issued a formal legal opinion concluding that state laws barring religious institutions from public benefits are flatly unconstitutional. Then he did something refreshingly simple: he announced his office would stop enforcing them. No task force. No study committee. Just a straight reading of the First Amendment and the courage to act on it.
In Iowa, Governor Kim Reynolds signed legislation gutting multiple sectarian provisions baked into state law. The most galling targets sat in Iowa’s education code — rules that forced religious schools to muzzle their own faith just to participate in programs secular schools accessed freely. Think about that for a moment. A religious school had to pretend it wasn’t religious to qualify for equal treatment. That’s not neutrality. That’s hostility wearing a bureaucratic mask.
The price of standing still
Meanwhile, not every state has gotten the memo. Colorado is headed back before the Supreme Court over rules that allegedly discriminate against religious schools in its universal pre-K program. Worse, some states have actually imposed new conditions on funding programs — fresh barriers engineered specifically to keep religious institutions on the outside.
As Judge Daniel Traynor noted in 2024, “Organizations must continually sue to keep the government from infringing on basic and well-settled rights to freedom of religion.” That’s a damning sentence. In a nation founded on religious liberty, people of faith shouldn’t need a legal war chest just to access programs their neighbors take for granted.
Oklahoma, Florida, and Iowa have grasped something that ought to be obvious: the First Amendment isn’t a recommendation, and honoring it shouldn’t require a judge’s order. Every state legislature in America should be auditing its own books right now. Every governor should be asking what discriminatory relics are still hiding in their legal code. Religious liberty isn’t a partisan cause — it’s the first freedom. Time to start treating it that way.
Key Takeaways
- Oklahoma, Florida, and Iowa are proactively repealing unconstitutional laws that exclude religious institutions from public programs.
- The Supreme Court has ruled definitively that denying public benefits based on religious status violates the First Amendment.
- Hundreds of discriminatory “sectarian” exclusions persist in state codes nationwide despite clear constitutional mandates.
- Proactive legislative reform is far preferable to forcing religious Americans into endless, costly litigation.
Sources: Daily Wire, City Journal
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