Kerry (and Santorum!) co-sponsored Workplace Religious Freedom Act

[DesEtoiles]

WHY HAVEN'T I HEARD ABOUT THIS BEFORE? THIS NEEDS TO BE USED TO COUNTER THE "BANNED BIBLE" RNC MAILINGS


Workplace Religious Freedom Act

In April 2003, Senators John Kerry and Rick Santorum co-sponsored the Workplace Religious Freedom Act in an effort to protect the rights of religious individuals in the workplace.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1972 amended Title VII of the Civil Rights act by prohibiting employers from discriminating against their employees on the basis of religion. The act directed employers to "reasonably accommodate" their employees' religious beliefs unless the accommodation would cause an "undue hardship" to the employer.

Court decisions subsequent to the 1972 act have diminished the Title VII protections provided to religious employees. One such decision was the Supreme Court's 1977 ruling in Transworld Airlines, Inc. v. Hardison, in which the court defined an "undue hardship" as any accommodation that would be more than a "de minimis" cost to the employer.

The Workplace Religious Freedom Act would primarily redefine "undue hardship" as "an action requiring 'significant difficulty or expense" to the employer. The act would also define a reasonable accommodation for a religious employee as an accommodation that would remove the conflict the employee encountered at the workplace as a result of his religious beliefs. The act would essentially curb religious discrimination in the workplace by putting the teeth back into Title VII.

http://www.clsnet.org/clrfPages/advocacy/WorkFreeAct.ph...

[kwolf68]

1. You haven't heard about it

Because it doesn't advance the agenda.

[DesEtoiles]

2. need LTTEs on this to counter RNC's "banned bible" materials