Washington – Like the Christian world commemorates Easter week Before Easter Sunday, the State Department has issued an appeal for its employees to report cases of alleged anti -Christian prejudice, including formal or informal actions due to the opposition to vaccines either Choice of personal pronounwhich happened during the Biden administration.
The call occurs in the midst of greater fear and anxiety in the American diplomatic corps, which is preparing for a new update on the Government Efficiency Department -The inspired budget and staff cuts that will be presented to the White House on Monday. This update is expected to include the latest estimates of the Voluntary Retirement State Department and separations and how possible future dismissals will affect the reference points of Elon Musk’s Doge and the Government’s human resources agency, according to officials familiar with the process.
But these officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss personnel issues, said that the update of the White House Management Office would not be the last word about the reorganization of the State Department. And denied speculation between the rank and the archive that the Secretary of State Marco Rubio He had refused to sign the document.
While foreign and civil services employees expect news about their future, the State Department has advanced with an initiative aimed at eliminating religious bias in their policies and hiring practices with a specific emphasis on Anti -Christian activity That may have happened under President Joe Biden.
In a cable sent on Friday to all US diplomatic missions, Rubio requested that employees inform any discriminatory action perceived against Christians or employees who advocate in their name between January 2021 and January 2025. The cable, whose cable, the copies obtained by the associated press, says that all the informed accusations will be investigated by a government task force on the force of the government on the government. Anti -Christian bias And if discrimination is found, guilty can be disciplined. It also makes it clear that accusations can be sent anonymously.
“The working group will collect information and ideas of individuals and groups, including department employees, affected by anti -Christian bias or other religious discriminatory behavior,” says the cable.
“The working group is to request examples of anti -religious bias, particularly of the last four years, where the department attacked anyone for their religion, including discrimination, harassment, exclusion, disciplinary action, adverse determinations of security authorization, or any other adverse action, or in reprisals for exercising their religious rights,” the cable said. “This includes an anti -religious prejudice committed by department employees in their official duties against public members.”
Examples of possible violations include formal or informal actions taken against a person because they requested religious accommodation “to take mandatory vaccines or observing Religious festivals “And” Maltrate for refusing to participate in events and activities that promoted inconsistent or hostile issues to religious beliefs, including policies or practices related to preferred personal pronouns, “according to the cable.
Others include “mistreatment for opposite exhibitions of flags, banners or other paraphernalia in or in government facilities due to religious objection or by the content of the official means of opposing due to religious objections, forcing employees to eliminate personal exhibitions of faith or religious conscience, either as part of the elements of clothing/accessories in the descend The cable.
In non -governmental chat groups and in other places, some employees of the State Department expressed alarm on the cable, particularly because it was issued shortly after the promotion of a Junior Foreign Service officer to temporarily administer the Department of Human Resources Office of the Department, the Global Talent Management Office.
Lew Olowski He assumed that work last week and in his first comments to employees he welcomed a new class of incoming diplomats that cited biblical verses and thematic appointments of the president of the president Abraham Lincoln.
After swearing in the new class with the oath to the Constitution, Olowski told them: “Oaths and words are different. The words are to speak. Dolphins can speak. Oaths are agreements.
“For a United States officer like you and me, the Constitution is our commandment. His words are like the word of God and the words of the oath are our creation as officers,” he said, according to a transcription of his comments.
“And these words are our beginning. At first was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God,” he said, before praising the foreign service officers who have died while they were in service to the country.
In a perhaps unusual coincidence, reports of anti -Christian bias or other religious bias will be reported to Olowski’s wife, Heather, who is the head of the Civil Rights Office of the State Department.
Last week, the American Foreign Service Association, which represents US diplomats, the American Diplomacy Academy said that Olowski’s appointment was an affront to the long -standing standard that the position would be occupied by a current senior or retired race diplomat. His numerous Pro-Trump and anti-immigrants writings in conservative publications in recent years had been widely shared among internal group chats.
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Associated Press Sam Mednik writer in Jerusalem contributed to this report.
