THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, June 9, 1994 TAG: 9406090752
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JODI ENDA\
DATELINE: 940609 LENGTH: WASHINGTON
You couldn't go to work unless you left your religion at home, conservative Christian activists and lawmakers say, under proposed federal rules on religious harassment.
{REST} That would be scary, federal officials agree, if it were what they were proposing. But, they hasten to add, it is not.
A government attempt to prevent religious discrimination in offices and factories across the nation has touched off a protest among conservatives who contend new rules essentially would evict God from the workplace.
Conservative leaders have spread the word on Christian television stations, in religious newspapers and church newsletters. They have collected tens of thousands of signatures and prompted people to mail more than 11,000 letters - and one bullet - to the federal officials who crafted the regulations. Now they have taken the fight to the Capitol.
``In the guise of protecting religious freedom, they're taking religious freedom from us,'' said Rep. Howard P. ``Buck'' McKeon, R-Calif., who is leading the charge on Capitol Hill.
The Rev. John Hagee, pastor of the Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, Texas, characterized the proposed rules as ``a wholesale attack on religious freedom in America against both Christian and Jewish people.''
``This guideline allows for the criminalization of religious expression,'' he said. ``If I have a Bible on my desk or wear a Star of David, I can be prosecuted under the same penalties as sexual harassment or racial discrimination.''
Federal officials say nothing could be further from the truth.
``They do no such thing,'' Dianna Johnston, assistant legal counsel to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, said of the rules her agency has proposed.
``If you abuse people, if you engage in conduct that is hostile, and if that conduct is severely denigrating or hostile,'' you could be guilty of religious harassment, she said. ``Obviously, wearing a cross or a yarmulke is not hostile or denigrating to somebody else's religion. It's just not conceivable to us that there could be any valid claim of religious harassment.''
On this much all sides agree: The proposed rules do not specifically prohibit the display of religious symbols in the workplace. Indeed, they don't even mention crosses and yarmulkes. What they do is define harassment as conduct that ``denigrates or shows hostility or aversion'' to someone based on religion, race, color, gender, national origin, age or disability. And they say that, to be deemed illegal, the conduct must create an intimidating, offensive or hostile work environment or interfere with someone's work or job opportunities.
``In fact, the commission has sued employers for prohibiting people from wearing a yarmulke or a Sikh headdress,'' Johnston said.
But opponents say that however nebulous the guidelines appear, they will have a ``chilling effect.''
``Employers will therefore say, `I've got to protect myself against liability' '' and ban anything religious, said Sen. Howell Heflin, D-Ala. Just the anticipation of the rules has prompted at least one major company to forbid religious symbols at work, opponents said.
Heflin and others fighting the proposed rules concede that they break no new ground. They simply serve to spell out certain types of behavior outlawed by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The same rules apply to sexual harassment, but separate guidelines exist.
So why the hubbub?
The answer depends on whom you ask.
Opponents of the guidelines, like Rep. Rod Grams, R-Minn., say they are fighting the ``outrageous'' spread of political correctness.
Supporters of religious-harassment rules offer two other motives - politics and proselytizing.
``It's an attempt on the part of some of these groups to make some political hay, to stand up against the godless bureaucracy, to play on some themes that are politically attractive,'' said J. Brent Walker, general counsel to the Baptist Joint Committee. ``It's a political issue that plays well.''
Conservative Christian groups also fear they will lose the right to ``share their faith'' in the workplace, Walker said. ``We're saying that the guidelines would protect that kind of thing.''
When the proposed rules first were released last October, few took notice.
Then, on Christmas Eve, the Rev. Louis P. Sheldon read them.
Sheldon, chairman of the Traditional Values Coalition, a conservative group that represents 31,000 churches and has offices in Washington and Anaheim, Calif., took to the airwaves.
``We want religion dropped from the guidelines,'' he said recently. ``Religion has a preferred position in the Constitution. Religion has an independent liberty about it. It is a totally separate category, not to be compared with sexual and racial harassment, as important as those are.''
Sheldon contacted Hagee, a coalition member, who drew up a ``petition of outrage'' calling on President Clinton to ``revoke and rescind this dangerous attack on our religious freedom.''
Hagee said 47,872 people signed the petitions, which were stacked in the basement of the Capitol during a recent news conference at which two dozen members of Congress pledged to fight the guidelines. McKeon said more than 120 lawmakers had signed on to cosponsor a resolution calling on the EEOC to strip religion from its harassment rules.
``People who believe in God have every reason to be concerned about their freedom in this country,'' said Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif. He said there is an ``across-the-board attack on people with traditional beliefs,'' including Boy Scouts, who have been pressured to remove God from their oath.
Other Jewish and Christian organizations, however, have taken another tack, suggesting the proposed guidelines do more to protect than to hinder religion.
``I would think people who were religiously observant would want the protections as much as anyone else,'' said Richard Foltin, legislative director and counsel of the American Jewish Committee. ``Harassment can be not only to force observance on someone but also to force non-observance on someone.''
Federal officials, meanwhile, have extended to June 13 the period for public comments. Angry missives are piling up daily, the EEOC's Johnston said.
``If we had done what these people have apparently been told we did, they'd have a right to be mad,'' she said. ``But we didn't.''
{KEYWORDS} RELIGION EEOC by CNB