“NY is the the state with the least freedom”
I would argue NYC has the most freedom. NYC has the lowest rate of sexual assaults and the lowest rate of property crime of any city in America. And it has one of the lowest rates of homicide of any large city. Did the GMU researchers include freedom from crime in their criteria?
And as pointed out earlier, NYC is awfully tolerant of people with nonstandard lifestyles like ours. I’m in Europe right now and the local Jews were envious of the fact that my wife can practice medicine while wearing a headscarf — around here, many men feel they can’t wear yarmulkes on the street because they will stand out.