These Laws Helped Make Arkansas Number-One in Religious Liberty

Religious Freedom, ,

This summer, Arkansas was named number-one in the nation when it comes to protecting religious liberty.

The legal experts at First Liberty analyzed religious freedom laws in all 50 states, and they concluded Arkansas’ laws are the very best. But reaching the top spot did not happen overnight. It took a lot of work from a lot of different people over several years.

Something that separates Arkansas from many other states is the way state law protects healthcare workers’ rights of conscience.

In 2021, Arkansas passed Act 462 by Sen. Kim Hammer (R – Benton) and Rep. Brandt Smith (R – Jonesboro) protecting rights of conscience for doctors, nurses, physician assistants, and other healthcare workers in Arkansas.

Before 2021, healthcare workers had very few conscience protections under Arkansas law. Act 462 helped broaden and strengthen those protections.

In 2025, lawmakers passed Act 970 by Sen. Kim Hammer (R — Benton) and Rep. Lee Johnson (R — Greenwood) strengthening the healthcare workers’ rights of conscience law Arkansas passed in 2021.

Among other things, Act 970 added whistleblower protections for healthcare workers, and it helped protect all medical professionals from having their rights of conscience violated.

You can watch video highlights of Act 970’s passage below.

Last year Arkansas also enacted Act 677 of 2025 by Rep. Robin Lundstrum (R — Elm Springs) and Sen. Gary Stubblefield (R — Branch). The law ensures 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.

Act 677 helps prevent the government from burdening the free exercise of religion in Arkansas.

You can watch video of Rep. Lundstrum presenting Act 677 in the Arkansas House of Representatives below.

A lot of people deserve credit for making Arkansas into a leader on religious liberty, and Family Council has been happy to support those good efforts.

Religious liberty is not just the right to believe in something. It’s the right to live according to your faith. Arkansas’ number-one ranking shows the state has some of the best laws in the nation when it comes to protecting religious liberty.

We look forward to working with lawmakers to help Arkansas keep that number-one ranking in the 2027 legislative session.

Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.

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Seattle City Council Unanimously Votes to Recognize Polyamory, Expand Definition of “Sexual Orientation”

Marriage, , , ,

On September 15, the Seattle City Council voted unanimously in favor of an ordinance to recognize polyamory in city code.

In 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down state marriage laws nationwide with its Obergefell v. Hodges ruling. The decision effectively legalized same-sex marriage across the country. But it also unintentionally opened the door to polygamy and polyamory.

We have seen multiple examples of polygamists riding the coattails of the same-sex marriage movement in court and elsewhere.

Seattle’s polyamory ordinance grants special protections to “consensual relationships involving multiple partners” in city code concerning housing, employment, places of public accommodation, policing, and human rights.

The ordinance also removes the words “male or female” from the definitions of “sexual orientation” in Seattle’s municipal code, and it expands the list of sexual orientations to include pansexuality and asexuality.

Same-sex marriage’s fundamental argument is that a person should be able to marry whoever they want. If that’s true, polygamists argue, then a person also should be able to marry as many people as they want.

Back in 2015 Chief Justice John Roberts made this point when he wrote his dissenting opinion on Obergefell, saying:

“One immediate question invited by the majority’s position [regarding same-sex marriage] is whether States may retain the definition of marriage as a union of two people. . . . 

“It is striking how much of the majority’s reasoning would apply with equal force to the claim of a fundamental right to plural marriage.”

But Americans as a whole may not be as supportive of polygamy, polyamory, and pro-LGBT ideology as the City of Seattle.

Gallup’s 2026 “Moral Acceptability” survey found that among Democrats, support for changing a person’s gender is down 11 points and support for polygamy is down 10 points since last year.

Among Republicans, Gallup found only 5% support sex-change procedures, and 7% say polygamy is morally acceptable.

It’s important for Christians to remember that the Bible does not support polygamy. The biblical design for marriage is the union of one man to one woman for a lifetime. The Bible does tell stories about people who practiced polygamy. In nearly every one of those stories — from Abraham to Elkanah to Solomon — polygamy is tied to serious problems.

Marriage is about more than the rights and privileges of adults.

It’s also about the rights and welfare of children. The best place for a child is in a stable home with a married mother and father.

Polygamy and polyamory have a consistent history of demeaning women and hurting children.

Most Americans seem to understand that. Cities like Seattle should recognize it as well.

Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.

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