Bloomberg Law
Nov. 18, 2020, 12:39 AM

EEOC Tiptoes Around Religion, LGBT Rights in Proposed Guidance

Paige Smith
Paige Smith
Reporter

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission acknowledged the friction between religious liberties and anti-bias laws in proposed updates to its religious discrimination guidance, but didn’t explicitly weigh in on whether one right outweighs the other.

The document, made public Tuesday, outlines the civil rights agency’s approach to workplace religious discrimination, accommodations, and defenses. It declined to define “the exact parameters of the First Amendment” to the U.S. Constitution, or the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act, in relation to anti-discrimination enforcement, but includes “how courts have analyzed them to date.”

“Courts addressing the overlap between EEO laws and rights under ...