On Free Exercise of Religion (7-16-04)

Sometimes you have to have the wisdom of Solomon and the mind of an attorney to sort through church-state legislation. Dealing with the Workplace Religious Freedom Act (WRFA) is one of those issues. The organizations I generally trust for guidance on such matters are divided. Americans United for Separation of Church and State (AU) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) are against the act. The Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs (BJC) and The Interfaith Alliance (TIA) are in favor of the act.

WRFA would change Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to require that employers comply with the religious needs of their workers unless the accommodation would cause "significant difficulty or expense." AU and the ACLU think WRFA, in its current form, could undermine civil rights laws and employer nondiscrimination policies and harm the health and safety of people seeking medical care or other needed services. They propose amending the bill to limit the scope of its provisions to make accommodation only for religiously prescribed dress, grooming and time off. Their concern is that an "overly broad" interpretation of religious accommodation could be used to justify religiously motivated harassment of homosexuals at the workplace, allow police officers to leave abortion clinics unguarded, and permit medical personnel to refuse to perform medically necessary reproductive health care.

BJC and TIA, along with a broad and diverse coalition of more than forty religious groups, do not believe that the bill permits any broader interpretation on those specific issues than does current legislation and legal precedent. They believe the legislation is needed, at a time of increasing religious diversity, to deal with the increasing indifference of some employers to the vital importance of faith in the lives of their employees. Their concern is that limiting the scope of religious accommodation would make civil liberties divisible and allow the government to pick and choose the level of protection it accords a fundamental right based on whether society or the government viewed the content of the belief with favor or disfavor.

I'm still scratching my head on this one.