This week committees in the Arkansas House of Representatives backed two good bills protecting rights of conscience and the free exercise of religion.
In recent years, Arkansas has passed some of the best rights of conscience and religious freedom protections in the country.
In 2015, the state enacted its Religious Freedom Restoration Act. And lawmakers passed good bills in 2023 to further strengthen that law.
In 2021, Arkansas passed Act 462 protecting healthcare workers’ rights of conscience.
Before that law passed, Arkansas’ conscience protections were narrowly focused on abortion and end of life decisions, and they protected very few people. Act 462 helped broaden those protections and apply them to all healthcare workers.
On Tuesday, the House Judiciary Committee backed H.B. 1615 to further strengthen Arkansas’ protections concerning the free exercise of religion. This good bill by Rep. Robin Lundstrum (R — Elm Springs) and Sen. Gary Stubblefield (R — Branch) would ensure that religious organizations and religious individuals are not penalized for living out their deeply held religious convictions.
Time and again, wedding venues, bakeries, photography studios, florist shops, and others have been targeted by public officials and dragged into court simply because their owners wanted to operate according to their deeply held convictions.
H.B. 1615 will help prevent the government from burdening the free exercise of religion in Arkansas.
On Wednesday, the Senate Public Health Committee passed S.B. 444 by Sen. Kim Hammer (R — Benton) and Rep. Lee Johnson (R — Greenwood). This good bill improves the healthcare workers’ rights of conscience law Arkansas passed in 2021.
Among other things, S.B. 444 adds whistleblower protections for healthcare workers, and it helps protect all medical professionals from having their rights of conscience violated.
If H.B. 1615 and S.B. 444 pass this year, Arkansas law will continue to provide some of the best protections for religious liberty and medical rights of conscience in the country.
That would be something to celebrate.
Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.
