Federal employees can also hold prayer groups in offices during off hours, new guidance states
US federal employees have been authorized to display Bibles and discuss their religious beliefs in the workplace, according to a White House memo released on Monday. Officials said the move reinforces protections for religious liberty already guaranteed under federal law.
Shortly after returning to office in January, President Donald Trump signed an executive order establishing a task force to investigate alleged anti-Christian bias in government. He accused the previous administration of a widespread “anti-Christian weaponization of government.” Earlier this year, the State Department invited staff to report suspected incidents of religious discrimination.
According to the guidance issued by the Office of Personnel Management, the federal government’s human resources agency, public employees have the right to discuss religion, participate in “communal religious expressions,” and display religious items such as Bibles, crucifixes, or mezuzahs on their desks.
“During a break, an employee may engage another in polite discussion of why his faith is correct and why the non-adherent should re-think his religious beliefs,” the document states. “However, if the non-adherent requests such attempts to stop, the employee should honor the request.” The memo emphasizes that religious discussions must not be “harassing in nature.”
Current guidelines from the Department of Labor also specify that staff “who seek to proselytize in the workplace should cease doing so with respect to any individual who indicates that the communications are unwelcome.”
The latest memo, however, makes no mention of Islam or Muslim practices. Critics such as the Freedom From Religion Foundation claim that the guidance could disproportionately benefit evangelical Christians and enable workplace evangelizing, raising concerns about unequal treatment and the erosion of religious neutrality.
“These shocking changes essentially permit workplace evangelizing, but worse still, allow supervisors to evangelize underlings and federal workers to proselytize the public they serve,” said Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-president of the non-profit.
In 1997, the administration of President Bill Clinton affirmed that federal employees could share and discuss their religious views at work, provided they stopped if a colleague asked them to.
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