Protecting Sabbath-keepers and other religious minorities may become more hazardous if the American Civil Liberties Union, normally a defender of such rights, gets its way.

In a June 2 letter, the ACLU warned that the Workplace Religious Freedom Act, co-sponsored by U.S. Senators John F. Kerry, D-Mass., Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., Rick Santorum, R-Pa., and others, “would result in harm to critical, personal or civil rights,” according to a text posted on the organization’s Web site.

“Unless amended, the bill would threaten important rights of religious minorities, racial minorities, women, gay men and lesbians, and persons seeking reproductive health care and mental health services,” wrote ACLU Washington director Laura W. Murphy and legislative counsel Christopher E. Anders.

James Standish, executive director of the North American Religious Liberty Association and representative of the Seventh-day Adventist Church to the U.S. Congress, told ANN the ACLU is wrong in its assertions.

WRFA “is legislation that is desperately needed. Every day in America, people of faith are fired or mistreated for no crime other than being true to their conscience,” he said in an interview.

“The ACLU’s analysis is flawed,” he added. “There is nothing in WRFA that will negatively impact the rights of other co-workers. This is confirmed by a wide range of legal experts who have looked at the bill, including New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer.”

Spitzer, writing in “The Forward,” a weekly New York newspaper, denied that accommodating Sabbath-keepers and others would impinge on general civil liberties. Arguing in favor of similar legislation that New York’s legislature had enacted, Spitzer said the ACLU was “simply wrong” on the issue.

“New York’s law has not resulted in the infringement of the rights of others, or in the additional litigation that the ACLU predicts will occur if WRFA is enacted. ... Rather, it strikes the correct balance between accommodating individual liberty and the needs of businesses and the delivery of services. So does WRFA,” he wrote.

Standish believes the ACLU “unfortunately is trying to make two tiers of religious liberty—one for beliefs it agrees with and one for beliefs with which it disagrees.” He said the lobbying group is claiming harm in areas where WRFA actually will not impinge on civil rights.

“All 44 religious communities which are members of our coalition firmly support the principle that religious freedom is indivisible,” Standish added.

Passage of the WRFA may or may not happen during the current Congressional session. Although the bill is sponsored by Sens. Santorum and Kerry—and has just garnered North Carolina’s Sen. Elizabeth Dole as a co-sponsor—the crush of legislation and election-year activities may overtake the measure’s progress.