WASHINGTON — U.S. senators Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) and John Kerry (D-Mass.) have introduced a bill that would amend the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to require employers to do more to accommodate religious employees.

Kerry and other supporters — including gay-friendly U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.), a possible Democratic presidential candidate in 2008 — have characterized the Workplace Religion Freedom Act (WRFA) as a bill that would protect people from being penalized for taking time off to observe religious holidays or from being discriminated against for wearing turbans, headscarves or other religiously required clothing.

Christopher Labonte, legislative director at the Human Rights Campaign, said many religious groups support the bill, including organizations such as the Religious Action Center and the Anti-Defamation League, which have been longtime allies on gay and lesbian rights issues.

Labonte said that though the bill was apparently created with good intentions, the way it is written could cause harm to gay people.

HRC outlined its objections about WRFA in a letter March 15 to members of Congress:

“The concern here is that employers would have serious difficulty resolving instances where an employee posts a sign reading ‘God hates fags’ in his office or cubicle; where workers proselytize on the ‘sins of the homosexual lifestyle’ over lunch and on breaks; where a social worker proffers a religious objection to being the case manager or counselor for a youth who is gay or transgender; or where a truck driver on 24-hour driving shift who gives a religious reason for refusing to drive with a co-driver who is gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender.”

HRC also expressed concern that WRFA could allow health care professionals to refuse to provide basic services for a gay or transgender patient.

“Kerry has made promises that he would try to fix the bill but his office has been adamantly unwilling to make changes,” said Christopher Anders, legislative counsel for the ACLU Washington office.

April Boyd, press secretary for Kerry, said that the former presidential candidate has a 100 percent approval rating from HRC and would not sponsor legislation that diminishes the rights of gays.

Officials in Clinton’s office did not return calls by press time.

Anders at the ACLU said several groups, including the National Women’s Law Council, the National Council of Jewish Women and Planned Parenthood, held meetings with the Democratic co-sponsors “to try and show them that there are ways to fix the bill without harming access to civil rights or health care.”

“They could have added language so WRFA could not be used to override state or federal civil rights laws or company non-discrimination policies or block access to health care,” he added. “This has not been done.”

Current federal law prohibits discrimination based on religion. But in cases where an employee’s religious beliefs conflict with requirements of his or her job, courts have interpreted “undue hardship” as anything more than a minimal cost or difficulty for the employer.

The bill would define “undue hardship” for employers as an action requiring “significant difficulty or expense.”

Civil rights groups contend that conservative organizations such as the American Center for Law & Justice, the American Families Association and Focus on the Family are prepared to take advantage of an expanded accommodation requirement and bring cases to expand religious freedom at the expense of gay and lesbian employees.

“Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is the cornerstone of civil rights laws, and of all laws it should not be made available to be used as an anti-civil rights weapon,” said Aaron Schuham, legislative director for Americans United for Separation of Church & State.

There is no federal law against discrimination based on sexual orientation. The Employment Non-Discrimination Act, first introduced in Congress in 1994, would have added sexual orientation to the list of protected categories in the 1964 Civil Rights Act but it did not pass.

While the ACLU and the Human Rights Campaign have stated that some simple reworking of the language in WRFA could protect religious practice as well as the civil rights of gay men and lesbians, the Family Research Council is supporting the bill as a means to protect those who would otherwise lose their jobs for following religious beliefs and for refusing to distribute contraceptives.