On May 14, 2025, Indiana’s Attorney General Todd Rokita and its Lieutenant Governor Micah Beckwith jointly released a “Churches’ Bill of Rights: A Legal Guidebook.” The 30-page resource (available to download here) collects legal principles related to churches’ tax exemptions, speech protections, freedom to worship and live out religious principles, eligibility for government benefits, and governance. It also contains some guidance on public health and safety, some of which apply to religious individuals rather than churches. It explains Indiana and federal principles in a question-and-answer format. And it includes an appendix collecting Indiana and federal constitutional, statutory, and regulatory provisions.
This guidebook updates a letter Attorney General Rokita issued in 2024 ahead of that year’s election, which focused on tax exemption and advocacy. (Available here.)
The guidebook is a good resource for Indiana religious organizations as a starting point to understand their distinctive treatment under state and federal law. It is not a comprehensive collection of all legal principles that treat religious organizations or individuals distinctively, nor is it a replacement to professional legal or tax advice.
