Trump Notches Gargantuan Win for Christians Who Were Banned from Sharing Their Faith

The Trump management issued a memo affirming that federal employees are allowed to express and practice their religious beliefs openly in the workplace. the guidance protects religious expression, permitting employees to display religious items and engage in discussions about faith, including encouraging coworkers to participate in religious activities, as long as such interactions are not unwanted or harassing. The memo emphasizes that religious discrimination in federal workplaces violates the law and can harm employee recruitment and retention. It also cites the First amendment and Supreme Court rulings supporting the exercise of religion in daily life. While supporters praise the memo for upholding religious freedom, critics such as the Freedom From Religion Foundation argue it enables proselytizing that could pressure coworkers. the administration’s move is seen as a significant win for religious liberty among federal workers.


President Donald Trump’s administration notched another huge win for Americans of faith on Monday, announcing that they would be able to their religious beliefs at work.

The memo, The Hill noted, said that federal employees may persuade others why their religious beliefs are “correct” and that they would “be permitted to display and use items used for religious purposes or icons of a religiously significant nature, including but not limited to bibles, artwork, jewelry, posters displaying religious messages, and other indicia of religion (such as crosses, crucifixes and mezuzahs) on their desks, on their person, and in their assigned workspaces.”

“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,” the memo from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management read.

“It also threatens to adversely impact recruitment and retention of highly-qualified employees of faith.”

Trump, the memo said in a quote, is committed to preserving “America’s unique and beautiful tradition of religious liberty,” including with directing “the executive branch to vigorously enforce the historic and robust protections for religious liberty enshrined in federal law.”

“The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution robustly protects expressions of religious faith by all Americans — including Federal employees,” the order read.

“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.’”

Thus, the memo said, federal workers can not only practice their faith openly at work but can also “encourage their coworkers to participate in religious expressions of faith, such as prayer, to the same extent that they would be permitted to encourage coworkers participate in other personal activities.”

“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. However, if the nonadherent requests such attempts to stop, the employee should honor the request,” the memo continued.

“An employee may invite another to worship at her church despite being belonging to a different faith.”

The OPM worked with the White House Faith Office — which Trump established in the second month of his presidency — to produce the memo.

Andrew T. Walker, a professor of theology at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and a fellow with the Ethics & Public Policy Center, called the protections “quite robust.”

“You don’t have to baptize your convictions in secularism to work for the federal government,” he added.

“The new OPM guidance upholds the obvious: religious Americans are full citizens — even at work.”

The anti-theistic Freedom From Religion Foundation, however, decried the move — always a sign you’re on the right side of history.

“Federal employees can now proselytize coworkers — even supervisors can try to convert staff, as long as it’s not ‘harassing,’” the group said, linking a Reuters article.

“A gift to evangelicals and the myth of ‘anti-Christian bias,’” said the organization, a routine purveyor of anti-Christian bias.

But that highlights two craziest things about this: First, it’s crazy that at some point in America it became illegal to your faith to government co-workers. Second, it’s crazy that this reversal will do nothing to change some “Christians’” opinion of Trump — likely because their faith is secondary or tertiary, at best.




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