Support for the Workplace Religion Freedom Act (WRFA) is growing, but more letters of support are needed in order to pass the bill in the Senate, reports James Standish, director of legislative affairs for the Seventh-day Adventist world church.
Support for the Workplace Religion Freedom Act (WRFA) is growing, but more letters of support are needed in order to pass the bill in the Senate, reports James Standish, director of legislative affairs for the Seventh-day Adventist world church.
The proposed law would strengthen legal protection for people of faith in the workplace. While current law requires that employers accommodate the religious faith of their employees, there is widespread agreement that the current provisions are too weak to provide meaningful protection. The Workplace Religious Freedom Act is designed to remedy this imbalance in the law by providing protection for a wide variety of religious practices, including the wearing of religiously mandated clothing and hairstyles, and by protecting the right of employees to rest from work on holy days.
“This is a serious issue,” notes Standish. “The Adventist Church alone receives approximately a thousand requests each year for help from members in the United States who are experiencing difficulty in the workplace. Other faiths are experiencing similar problems. There is a broad consensus that now is the time to do something to remedy this problem.”
Adventists around the country have played a key role in attracting cosponsors for WRFA and moving this legislation forward. “There is an urgent need for church members across the United States to contact their elected representatives in Washington and express support for WRFA,” says Standish. He notes that letters have been sent to every Adventist Church in Missouri, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine encouraging Adventists in these states to contact key senators in order to encourage them to support the bill.
There is growing bipartisan support for the legislation; Senators John Kerry and Rick Santorum are the lead sponsors, and the bill has recently picked up an additional twelve cosponsors, including Senators Hilary Rodham Clinton, Tim Hutchinson, Joseph Lieberman, and Gordon Smith.
For more information about how to support WRFA go to
http://ola.adventist.org
