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IN THE run-up to a festive season shaping up to be like no other, the Trump administration, according to Slate<\/em><\/span><\/a>, this week gave the green light to federal contractors to discriminate against racial and religious minorities, women, and especially LGBTQ people in the name of protecting \u2018religious liberty.\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n It effectively abolishes critical workplace protections for these contractors that have been in place for decades, reframing religious freedom as a near-limitless license to discriminate. Monday\u2019s move will force the Biden administration to waste countless hours and resources reversing this radical rewrite of federal law.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Americans United for Separation of Church and State is appalled. Its President and CEO Rachel Laser said in a statement<\/a>:<\/p>\n It\u2019s unconscionable, though hardly surprising, that the lame-duck Trump administration would expand the ability of federal contractors \u2013 who employ one-fifth of the American workforce \u2013 to use religious litmus tests to hire or fire employees for jobs paid for with taxpayer dollars. <\/em><\/p>\n It\u2019s especially heartless that the Trump administration would advance this policy in the midst of a global public health and economic crisis.The constitutional right to religious freedom promises everyone the right to live their lives secure that the government will treat them equally, no matter what their belief system. <\/em><\/p>\n The new Department of Labor rule, however, turns this core American value on its head and puts countless peoples\u2019 jobs at risk because they do not share the religious views or meet the religious code of conduct of a government contractor. Like so many others issued by the Trump administration, this rule particularly puts at risk workers who are LGBTQ, women, religious minorities and non-religious people.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Laser, above, added:<\/p>\n On Nov. 4, the voters rejected this type of religion-based discrimination that has been supported by the Trump administration and the President\u2019s Christian nationalist allies. This rule is a last-gasp effort by the outgoing administration to ignore the will of the people and cement a legacy of using religious freedom as a sword to harm people, rather than a shield to protect all of us.<\/em><\/p>\n We urge the Biden-Harris administration to restore and protect religious freedom and right the wrongs of the Trump administration, including by directing the Department of Labor to immediately begin the process of revoking this rule.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Americans United has prepared an \u201cAgenda to Restore & Protect Religious Freedom\u201d for the Biden-Harris administration, which includes protecting federally funded employees from religious discrimination. An overview of that agenda is available here.<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Slate\u2019s<\/em> Mark Joseph Stern revealed that a key figure in the move to overturn rules restricting discrimination that spring from Executive Order 11246 \u2013 which President Lyndon Johnson signed in 1965 \u2013 is a real sweetheart named Eugene Scalia above, the current Labor Secretary.<\/p>\n Eugene Scalia is no fan of these rules \u2013 or, it seems, of any workplace protections. Scalia, son of the late Justice Antonin Scalia, previously worked as a corporate attorney who specialized in crushing employees\u2019 rights. He has spent his tenure at the Labor Department dismantling federal regulations that safeguard workers\u2019 rights, health, and safety. <\/em><\/p>\n Scalia\u2019s deregulatory agenda has been especially catastrophic during the pandemic; under his guidance, the agency refused to protect workers from COVID-19, permitting fatal outbreaks through its own shocking negligence.<\/em><\/p>\n In the long run, Scalia may be best remembered for abandoning his duty to shield vulnerable employees from infection and death \u2013 the many people who died of COVID-19 after he declined to enforce basic workplace safety rules in the midst of a pandemic are gone forever. <\/em><\/p>\n Scalia\u2019s new discrimination rule, by contrast, will have a short shelf life: There is no doubt that the Biden administration will repeal it, though the process may take months, even years.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Stern wrote that Scalia framed his rule as a mere \u201cinterpretation\u201d of current law, seizing upon a previous exemption added by President George W Bush. The past modification allowed a subset of religious contractors to favor employees of a \u201cparticular religion.\u201d<\/p>\n Bush\u2019s exemption was designed to let faith groups hire co-religionists; for instance, it would let a Jewish charity hire a Jewish director, even though turning away non-Jewish applicants would otherwise constitute illegal discrimination. The courts have interpreted this provision to cover nonprofit organizations and institutions with a dedicated religious mission.<\/p>\n But under Scalia\u2019s rule:<\/p>\n This narrow exemption will become a black hole that sucks up all claims of discrimination. It manufactures a new test by plucking language out of different statutes and court decisions to encompass pretty much any contractor seeking to escape a lawsuit. This test merely asks if a contractor views and conveys itself as religious, with heavy deference for an employer\u2019s own sense of its \u2018religious purpose.\u2019\u00a0 It covers for-profit corporations so long as they swear they are motivated by religion.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Stern concluded:<\/p>\n The Trump administration has spent years enshrining pro-discrimination rules into the law. Across federal agencies, his allies have sought to implement cruel regulations that legalize bigotry in schools, hospitals, universities, and other workplaces. <\/em><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/1122\/2020\/12\/laser.jpg\")
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