Workplace Religion: The New Civil Right?
Over the weekend, the Dallas Morning-News ran a Religion News Service piece on the growing issue of religion in the workplace. The starting point is a recent book entitled God at Work: The History and Promise of the Faith at Work Movement by David Miller, executive director of Yale University's Center for Faith and Culture.
This faith-at-work movement, Mr. Miller said, will ultimately shape business culture as profoundly as the push for civil rights and equal pay shaped the environment for minority workers and women.A part of this change in culture is an awareness of the legal protections that already exist:
[E]mployers may be surprised to learn how much religious expression is legally protected in the workplace by the Constitution and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits employers from discriminating on religious grounds. The law also requires them to make "reasonable accommodations" for employees' "sincerely held beliefs."As I posted last week, the Congress is also considering an important step in the Workplace Religious Freedom Act just introduced. That legislation is supported by a number of religious liberty advocacy groups including the Baptist Joint Committee.