From the campaign
Religious Liberty Is the Law, Not the Exception to It
The First Amendment protects exercise, not just belief. Almost nobody in American politics argues against belief anymore. The pressure lands on practice.
The First Amendment does not say Americans may believe quietly. It says Congress shall make no law prohibiting the free exercise of religion.
Exercise. The practice of a faith, not merely the holding of one.
That distinction is the entire fight, because almost nobody in American politics argues against belief anymore. The pressure lands on practice. The nurse asked to assist with a procedure that violates her conscience. The counselor told which convictions he may bring to work. The faith-based foster agency told to choose between its mission and its beliefs. The congregation whose worship gets disrupted by people who face no consequence for doing it.
My faith matters to me. I believe the Bible, and I believe the founders knew what they were doing when they put free exercise first in the Bill of Rights.
Three things I will support in Pierre.
Protect houses of worship. The 2026 legislature took up SB 113, attaching real penalties to the intentional disruption of religious services. A congregation at worship deserves what the law already gives a courtroom or a classroom.
Protect conscience across the professions. Doctors, nurses, pharmacists, counselors, and teachers should never have to choose between a license and a faith. Conscience protection denies nobody care. It keeps the people who provide care from being conscripted into acts that violate their deepest convictions.
Protect faith-based adoption and foster care. These agencies have placed more children in loving homes than any government program has. When the state squeezes them out, children wait longer, and kids end up paying for somebody else's ideological win.
The line I am actually drawing
This is not a license to mistreat anyone, and I want that stated flatly rather than buried in a qualifier. Nothing I support lets a business or a professional deny a person ordinary service because of who they are.
The line is narrower and a great deal older than the culture war. Government cannot compel a citizen to participate in expressive acts or ceremonies that violate his faith, and it cannot strip a religious institution of its identity as the price of existing in public.
Conscience is a shield against compulsion. It was never a sword.
The four questions I get asked most about this are answered below. The full plank is at zac4sd.com.
Strong Families. Strong South Dakota.
Anticipated pushbacks · prepared responses
Common questions on this issue
These are the questions and concerns that come up most often. The responses below are my honest answers, not talking points.
- Q. This is just a license to discriminate.
- A. Nothing in what I support gives anyone permission to mistreat anyone. What I oppose is the state forcing a person to participate in ceremonies or expressive activities that violate their deepest beliefs. Conscience is not a license to harm, it is a shield against compulsion.
- Q. Medical professionals took an oath. If they cannot do their job they should find another one.
- A. The Hippocratic tradition begins with first, do no harm. Telling a nurse she must choose between participating in a procedure she believes is harmful and losing her career is not medical ethics, it is ideological coercion, and it will drive good people out of medicine in a state that cannot afford to lose them. Conscience and compassion go together.
- Q. Separation of church and state means religion does not belong in public life.
- A. The First Amendment prohibits government from establishing a religion. It does not prohibit citizens from practicing theirs, including in public. Religious liberty belongs to every citizen, of every faith, everywhere they go. That is the American settlement and it has served us for two and a half centuries.
- Q. Faith-based agencies that will not place children with every couple should lose state contracts.
- A. When the state forces faith-based agencies to choose between their faith and their mission, the agencies close and the children wait. More agencies of every kind means more children placed in loving homes. Kids first, ideology last.