By Courtney Rozen
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. federal employees may try to recruit their coworkers to join their religion, the Trump administration said on Monday in a statement allowing workers to organize prayer groups during non-work hours.
Agency employees may seek to “persuade others of the correctness of their own religious views” in the office, Scott Kupor, director of the Office of Personnel Management, the U.S. government’s human resource agency, wrote in a statement.
Supervisors can attempt to recruit their employees to their religion, so long as the efforts aren’t “harassing in nature,” according to the statement. Agencies can’t discipline their employees for declining to talk to their coworkers about their religious views.
The statement represents the latest effort to expand the role of religion in the federal workplace.
OPM in mid-July said agency workers can get permission to work from home or adjust their hours to accommodate religious prayers, after previously demanding that workers report to offices fulltime.
The statement cites President Donald Trump’s February executive order calling on agencies to eliminate the “anti-Christian weaponization of government.” That order directs cabinet secretaries to identify federal actions that are hostile to Christians.
Federal employees can also set up prayer groups in the workplace, so long as they don’t meet during work hours, according to Kupor’s statement.
(Reporting by Courtney Rozen; Editing by Howard Goller)
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