Federal workers can hold prayer circles with members of the public and tell colleagues to rethink their religious beliefs, according to new guidance the Trump administration released on Monday.
Civil servants can seek to "persuade others of the correctness of their own religious views,” the Office of Personnel Management said in the memorandum to federal agencies, adding employees must ensure their efforts are “not harassing in nature.” OPM issued the guidance to restore constitutional freedoms and enable feds to practice their religious practices without fear of retaliation, the agency said.
“Federal employees should never have to choose between their faith and their career,” OPM Director Scott Kupor said. “This guidance ensures the federal workplace is not just compliant with the law but welcoming to Americans of all faiths.”
As an example of the new policy, OPM said that during a break one employee can engage another “in polite discussion of why his faith is correct and why the non-adherent should rethink his religious beliefs." The employee should stop if the “nonadherent” colleague asks him to, according to the guidance.
OG posted by Eric Katz, Senior Correspondent @ GovExec
This is a restoral of a Clinton-era policy that was ended because other administrations put limitations on religious practice in the workplace, which is a massive pervasion of the first amendment.
“The Founders established a Nation in which people were free to practice their faith without fear of discrimination or retaliation by their government.” President Trump is committed to reaffirming “America’s unique and beautiful tradition of religious liberty,” including by directing “the executive branch to vigorously enforce the historic and robust protections for religious liberty enshrined in Federal law.” The Federal workforce should be a welcoming place for Federal employees who practice a religious faith. Allowing religious discrimination in the Federal workplace violates the law. It also threatens to adversely impact recruitment and retention of highly-qualified employees of faith.
The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution robustly protects expressions of religious faith by all Americans—including Federal employees.
The U.S. Supreme Court has clarified that the Free Exercise Clause “protects not only the right to harbor religious beliefs inwardly and secretly,” but also “protect[s] the ability of those who hold religious beliefs of all kinds to live out their faiths in daily life.” Indeed, “[r]espect for religious expressions is indispensable to life in a free and diverse Republic[.]”
Freedom of religious expression is further protected by Federal statutes. These statutes prohibit the Federal government from discriminating in employment based on religion or religious expression.