The Supreme Court Backs Sabbath Sunday Accommodations for Workers

In a 9-0 unanimous decision, the Supreme Court overturned a 50-year-old precedent and made it easier for employees to secure religious accommodations, such as going to church on Sunday. On June 29, 2023, Fox News reported the following:

• "The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled unanimously for a postal worker in Pennsylvania in an important religious liberty dispute, over how far employers should go to accommodate faith-based requests in the workplace. Gerald Groff, a Christian mail carrier, from Pennsylvania, asked the court to decide whether the U.S. Postal Service could require him to deliver Amazon packages on Sundays, which he observes as the Sabbath. His attorney, Aaron Streett, argued in April that the court should revisit a 50-year-old precedent that established a test to determine when employers should make accommodations for their employees' religious practices. In ruling for the government worker, the high court overturned its 1977 precedent that said employers had to 'reasonably accommodate' an employee's religious beliefs and practices, so long as that would not create an 'undue hardship' on the business." [1]

Even though this ruling dealt specifically with an Evangelical Christian, Gerald Groff, who refused to work on Sundays due to his religious beliefs, it should also apply to Muslims, Jews, Seventh-day Adventists, and anyone else seeking religious accommodations. But regardless of how you feel about this decision, the fact remains that the right to refuse to work on Sunday was unanimously decided. This will undoubtedly motivate and inspire more Christians in America to reclaim Sunday as their day of rest and worship.

Christians around the country will no doubt be celebrating this as a huge win. Why should they have to work on Sunday? Some will even argue that no one should work on the Sunday Sabbath. The argument is already being made today in many places that Sunday desecration is the cause of all the problems we see in society. And soon, the demand for Sunday legislation will return to the forefront.

"I have been much burdened in regard to movements that are now in progress for the enforcement of Sunday observance. It has been shown to me that Satan has been working earnestly to carry out his designs to restrict religious liberty. Plans of serious import to the people of God are advancing in an underhand manner among the clergymen of various denominations, and the object of this secret maneuvering is to win popular favor for the enforcement of Sunday sacredness. If the people can be led to favor a Sunday law, then the clergy intend to exert their united influence to obtain a religious amendment to the Constitution, and compel the nation to keep Sunday" (Review and Herald, December 24, 1889).

Sources

[1] https://www.foxnews.com/politics/supreme-court-hands-religious-freedom-win-postal-worker-refused-work-sunday

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This release was published on openPR.