WV Gov. Justice signs bill expanding religious freedom protections – By Ben Whedon (Just the News) / Mar 9, 2023
The bill creates a legal course of action for those alleging to have had their rights threatened.
West Virginia Republican Gov. Jim Justice on Thursday signed the Equal Protection for Religion Act that aims to enshrine greater protections for persons of faith in state law.
The law states that the state may not “[s]ubstantially burden a person’s exercise of religion unless applying the burden to that person’s exercise of religion in a particular situation is essential to further a compelling governmental interest; and is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest.”
Neither may it “[t]reat religious conduct more restrictively than any conduct of reasonably comparable risk; nor [t]reat religious conduct more restrictively than comparable conduct because of alleged economic need or benefit.”
