New California Law Forces Churches to Provide 'Hate Speech' Training

Calvin Freiburger : Oct 9, 2026
LifeSiteNews.com

Starting in January, California will mandate employee 'anti-hate speech training' without religious accommodations or a clear definition of what the state considers 'hate speech.'

[LifeSiteNews.com] 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. (Image: Pexels)

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,"... Subscribe for free to Breaking Christian News here

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