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Written by Don Byrd
Canada’s Province of Quebec yesterday announced legislation that would bar government employees from wearing religious headgear or other religious symbols on the job. It would also weaken workers’ ability to receive religious accommodation from their employer.

The Wall Street Journal reports:

The measures, if passed, would ban public employees from wearing visible religious symbols, from turbans to skullcaps, and would allow small businesses the right to push back on religious demands, such as prayer time. While aping laws in France, the policies in the so-called Charter of Values are being seen by critics as part of the long-term campaign by the separatist minority government of Quebec to secede from Canada. Critics argue the laws are an attack on freedom of worship and multiculturalism, with religious groups, such as Muslims and Jews, saying they are being singled out for their style of worship.

Barring government employees from fulfilling the clothing requirements of their religion amounts to a ban on adherents of some faiths from public employment. Quebec should resist this trend to restrict individual displays of religion unnecessarily. In the United States, we get this right. Accommodation is the presumption. Workers shouldn’t have to choose between their faith and their livelihood.