‘Significant threat’: Federal government launches plan to track ‘faith’ data

In a day when the federal government sends grandmothers to jail for advocating for the lives of the unborn, insists it can coerce Christian companies to pay for abortion and promote an LGBT ideology that is out of mainstream, and more, a federal bureaucracy’s blast against religious freedom shouldn’t, perhaps, be a surprise.

It is the U.S. Department of Energy that has begun tracking employees’ beliefs through a plan to monitor employment accommodations.

And Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., is objecting.

He wrote Ann Dunkin, a DOE official, to “express my strong opposition to the Department of Energy’s recent notice regarding the establishment of a new system of records … .”

He warned the agenda “represents a grave violation of religious liberty as protected under the First Amendment and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.”

It is the Washington Stand that obtained a copy of the letter Lankford delivered to the DOE.

It included his warnings that the agency may be violating the constitutional rights of workers with its policy that requires the agency “to collect and store detailed information regarding requests for religious exemptions to various mandates,” the report said.

The DOE has claimed its accumulation of information about employees’ beliefs is needed to “collect, maintain, and disseminate records on employees and applicants for employment who seek and receive medical and non-medical accommodations.”

Also caught up in the information dragnet is information about workers with varying disabilities, and their accommodations.

But it also insists on keeping records regarding, “Federal employees or applicants for employment requesting accommodation based on a ‘sincerely held’ religious belief, practice, or observance under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. This system includes requests for a medical or religious accommodation.”

The report said Lankford has concerns that “collecting detailed records on an individual’s sincerely held religious beliefs and practices — alongside other personal and sensitive information — poses a significant threat to the privacy and religious freedoms of federal employees.”

He said the government should protect those workers’ religious – and privacy – rights.

“The new DOE policy also ‘risks creating an environment in which employees may feel compelled to disclose private details about their faith or religious practices in order to justify their accommodation requests,’ Lankford warned, observing that such an environment ‘can lead to potential religious discrimination or bias in the workplace,'” the report said.

He suggested the bureaucrats find other ways to ensure that reasonable accommodations are available.