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Palgrave Macmillan

Expanding Public Employee Religious Accommodation and Its Threat to Administrative Legitimacy

  • Book
  • © 2019

Overview

Authors:
  1. James N. Szymalak

    1. University of Wisconsin–La Crosse, La Crosse, USA

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  • Broadens the current post-Obergefell discussion of employee religious accommodation to consider the third-party impacts on public administration
  • Illuminates the myriad legal and supervisory challenges of implementing expanded religion accommodation obligations for public employees
  • Serves as a warning to legislators and policy advocates seeking to enlarge religious accommodation rights

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Religion, Politics, and Policy (PSRPP)

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Table of contents (9 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-vii
    Download chapter PDF

  2. Introduction

    • James N. Szymalak
    Pages 1-19

  3. The Obligation to Accommodate

    • James N. Szymalak
    Pages 21-40

  4. What Even Constitutes Religion?

    • James N. Szymalak
    Pages 41-58

  5. Expanding Religious Accommodation

    • James N. Szymalak
    Pages 59-80

  6. Applying the Heightened Standard

    • James N. Szymalak
    Pages 81-116

  7. Challenges of an Expanded Obligation

    • James N. Szymalak
    Pages 117-149

  8. Threatening Legitimacy

    • James N. Szymalak
    Pages 151-167

  9. Accommodation as a Sword

    • James N. Szymalak
    Pages 169-179

  10. Conclusion

    • James N. Szymalak
    Pages 181-186

  11. Back Matter

    Pages 187-193
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Keywords

About this book

In the wake of same-sex marriage legalization, most religious conservatives realize that they now share a minority viewpoint on many social issues. Such change has forced those formerly trying to forestall social evolution to instead seek legal recusal from engaging in matters that conflict with their religious beliefs. Not surprisingly, these recent legislative attempts to “affirm” religious free expression all focus upon the rights of the religious adherent, while mostly failing to consider the potential harm to third parties. In the provision of government services, this omission can do significant, lasting damage to public perceptions of administrative legitimacy—often already perilously maligned. Should government officials be legally obligated to grant their employees religious accommodations that they know will result in negative public perceptions, or worse, inflict dignitary harm among citizens seeking its services? This book draws attention to the threat to effective government that proposed expansions to religious accommodation laws can create. From damaging public opinion, to the myriad implementation concerns such as what even constitutes a religious belief to be accommodated, these challenges should serve as a warning to legislators and religious accommodation advocates to reconsider application of these enhanced obligations to the civil service.

Reviews

“In the aftermath of Obergefell v. Hodges many states and localities have passed broad and sweeping laws to allow religious conservatives to refuse service to LGBT customers.  This excellent study invites us to consider the harm that these statutes inflict. Highly recommended.” (Clyde Wilcox, Professor of Government, Georgetown University, USA)

“In this carefully crafted and thoroughly researched book, Szymalak analyzes the relationship between religious freedom and public policy [and] makes an important contribution to our understanding of the appropriate balance.” (James P. Pfiffner, University Professor of Public Policy, George Mason University, USA)

 

 

Authors and Affiliations

  • University of Wisconsin–La Crosse, La Crosse, USA

    James N. Szymalak

About the author

James N. Szymalak is Assistant Professor of Political Science and Public Administration at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, USA. Prior to this, he served as a senior personnel policy legal advisor to the Headquarters, US Department of the Army.

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