(LifeSiteNews) — Pro-family advocates in California are warning that Golden State churches have a little more than a year until they will be forced to conduct “hate speech” training for their employees, with the term’s meaning left up to unelected bureaucrats to determine.

Signed by Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom on September 27, AB 1803 amends current law requiring any employer with five or more workers to provide sexual harassment training. Starting January 1, 2028, this mandate “shall also include anti-hate speech training as a component of the training and education.” This training must “provide supervisors and employees with practical guidance on recognizing, reporting, and confronting workplace speech that vilifies, humiliates, or incites hatred against people based on the protected characteristics.”

The law does not mention any sort of religious exceptions or accommodations or does it define “hate speech.” California Family Council explained that whether or not a separate religious employer exemption in the Fair Employment and Housing Act will apply remains unresolved, and California bureaucracy has already illustrated how broadly it interprets “hate.”

“The Civil Rights Department’s own supervisor and employee module tells trainees that using the wrong pronoun for a transgender identified person on purpose is harassment, as well as objecting to a co-worker’s use of a restroom that does not match their sex,” CFC wrote. “Dennis McCourt, a Christian employee of an out-of-state Bible software company, refused to click through slides that required him to affirm those claims. ‘You could put a gun to my head. I won’t do it,’ he told CFC.”

Groups such as CFC have already vowed to start working on helping connect religious employers with resources for requesting religious exemptions and accommodations to which they are entitled under both federal and state law. The window before implementation also gives employers time to prepare legal challenges, though standing may be difficult to establish until actually implementing the policy enables them to show specific harm.

“Sacramento just gave itself the power to decide which convictions are hateful and then ordered every employer in the state to teach that verdict,” CFC vice president Greg Burt said. “Christians will not stop speaking the truth in love because a training module calls it vilification. We must obey God rather than men.” 

California is widely considered the most far-left state in America by numerous metrics, including LGBT issues. Under Newsom, California directs school districts to keep parents in the dark when their children show signs of gender dysphoria, shields those violating other states’ laws against transitioning minors, forces insurers to subsidize gender transitions, forces female school athletes to compete against biological males, and houses male inmates who claim “transgender” status with female prisoners.

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