Two years ago, I reached out asking you to strongly oppose the Trump administration’s decision to allow a wider range of federal contractors to discriminate against American workers under the guise of religious freedom. Essentially, the Trump administration created a regulation that vastly expanded religious exemptions for taxpayer-funded contractors in two ways: (1) it expanded the type of organization that can claim a religious exemption to even include for-profit businesses, and (2) it expanded who can be discriminated against in hiring.
What this means is that a much larger swath of federal contractors—which employ more than 20% of the American workforce—can now claim religious exemptions to discriminate even more egregiously in who they employ. The policy is particularly damaging to LGBTQ people, women, religious minorities, and—of course—humanists.
The harm is real. It means a taxpayer-funded refugee resettlement program can fire an unmarried woman after she becomes pregnant. It means a building contractor can refuse to hire a transgender man because of the discriminatory religious beliefs of the company’s owner. The bottom line: it distorts the concept of religious freedom to allow someone to weaponize their beliefs against workers.
The Biden administration has proposed a rule that would rescind contractors’ carte-blanche to discriminate. The new proposed rule would return the government’s policy to the narrow and discrete religious exemption in place before Trump, and restore the equity, fairness, and, of course, religious freedom that Trump tried to destroy. But they need to hear from you to make the necessary changes. With regulatory changes, the number of comments matter, and the administration needs to see that our community supports this.
Thank you for your help fighting for the religious freedom of all American workers.
Rachel Deitch
Policy and Social Justice Director
