So it's not an easy answer.

In the end, though, wearing a particular item of clothing is a behavior, not an identity per se --- so saying that people of and political persuasion are welcome is not the same as saying you can express any political opinion you like publicly in this forum.

But it's a really slippery slope:

Some religions require the devout to wear particular items of clothing (or hair styles, or...)

And there are a lot of issue with people saying: "I don't care if you are gay, just don't talk about it at work" -- but straight people get to talk about their personal lives at work -- so of course everyone should be able to.

This is why (in the US anyway) there is the legal concept of a "protected class" -- it needs to be clear exactly what one can can't "discriminate" based on. If an employee is required to wear a particular item of clothing in order to adhere to their religion, then you can't ban that type of clothing -- but you can ban other types of clothing.

For this issue, maybe we could get some guidance from the "Hatch Act" -- it is a law that regulates what types of political activity a US federal employee can participate in. It bans some activities even when off the job, but the part that might be relevant is what is banned while on the job. That is, as a US federal employee, you can belong to any political party you like, you can hold any political opinion you like, but you can't freely express those on the job -- i.e. "engage in political activity".

Hmm -- I found this: " Hatch Act regulations define political activity as one “directed toward the success or failure of a political party, candidate for partisan political office, or partisan political group.”

Interesting -- I'm pretty sure I'm not allowed to promote white supremacy on the job -- though that's not a partisan political group per se (can't find the definition of partisan, either)

TL;DR:

I think "political beliefs" should be included, but it should be clear somehow that that doesn't mean you can express any political belief in the context of the project.

Honestly, the really horrible people often can't help themselves -- they will actually *do* something inappropriate in the context of the project. And if they don't, then how d we even know what horrible ideas they may promote elsewhere?

-CHB

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