What Are They Afraid Of?

The Office of Personnel Managementsent out a memo the other day instructing federal workers that religious expression in the workplace will henceforth not be forbidden. The memo is reproduced here:

🚨Just in: The Trump administration has directed federal agencies to safeguard religious expression in the workplace, allowing employees to display crucifixes, carry Bibles, and pray with rosary beads pic.twitter.com/FZPwcpB7ya

— The Calvin Coolidge Project (@TheCalvinCooli1) July 28, 2025

As anodyne and sensible as this directive is, the folks at the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) considered it an intolerable breach of the "wall of separation" between church and state. Exactly how this memo violates that principle isn't clear but here's the memo they sent out:

An outrageous memo the United States Office of Personnel Management released yesterday says “during a break, an employee may engage another in polite discussion of why his faith is correct and why the nonadherent should rethink his religious beliefs.” https://t.co/8ExblnsKOe

— FFRF (@FFRF) July 29, 2025

What exactly are these people afraid of, that someone might have a meaningful conversation about what is perhaps the most important topic anybody could discuss? That someone might actually find themselves learning something important?

If two federal workers during their break got into a discussion on politics would that be considered "outrageous"? Since politics is an ersatz religion for some people, since some individuals are so zealous for their particular political beliefs that they're willing to estrange themselves from family and friends over their disagreements, why are the folks at the FFRF so allergic to the possibility that someone might bring up the topic of God in the workplace but not, presumably, to the possibility that someone might mention Biden or Trump?

Part of what it means to be an intellectually mature individual is being able to hear with equanimity opinions at variance with one's own. The person who cannot abide the knowledge that someone might disagree with them about something as important as religion is like a child who sticks his fingers in his ears while loudly insisting that he can't hear you.

Not only is the FFRF reaction childish, it also seems to be a symptom of insecurity. It's the sort of reaction one might expect from people who deep down fear that the views they've spent their lives believing and promoting simply cannot withstand scrutiny, and the only way to keep them from collapsing altogether is to avoid any discussion of their rationale.

Good for the Trump administration for treating federal workers like intellectually mature and psychologically healthy adults.