The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights

Religion

Religious organizations have long been leaders in the civil rights movement, given their commitment to tolerance, respect, diversity, and basic democratic freedoms. Such groups have been not only committed their energies to racial justice and equal opportunity for all, but also to protecting religious liberties.

Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights not only prohibits job discrimination on the basis of religion and other protected characteristics, but it also requires employers to reasonably accommodate an employee's religious observance or practice if the employer can do so "without undue hardship" to its business. Religious practices that may trigger this duty of religious accommodation may include observing the Sabbath or other religious holidays or conforming to religious clothing and/or grooming requirements.

The religious community has also been in the forefront in the fight against hate crimes. In recent years we have too often mourned the victims of a number of heinous hate crimes based on race, sexual orientation, and religion -- including the shooting of children at a Jewish child care center in Los Angeles, and the killing of an Asian-American man in Illinois as he left church. For this reason, enactment of the Local Law Enforcement Enhancement Act (formerly the called the Hate Crimes Prevention Act) remains a key priority. This legislation would eliminate unnecessary jurisdictional obstacles to prosecuting hate crimes based on race, religion, and national origin, and would provide for federal prosecution for certain hate crimes committed on the basis of sexual orientation, gender, and disability.