Religious intolerance in the job market

[Captain Oates 910]

I feel a new bumper sticker coming on - the christians will probably torch my car for it and see nothing un-christian about that but there has to be a counterbalance to this onslaught...

I reckon a mild one:

EVOLVED IN THE YORKSHIRE DALES

CREATED A FLORIDA RESIDENT

That should confuse em long enough for me to get away before they righteously smite me with their 9 millimetre guns on behalf of jesus who never had one to my knowledge

alan

[Captain Oates 910]

2. I don't believe that's legal. But who knows maybe religious entities are exempt, they're exempt from a lot of laws.

Not as far as I know. The Islamic school here has a christian teacher and they aren't allowed to hire teachers based on whether they are muslim are not but I don't know if that's the school's policy or the law's. I would hope they wouldn't hire a non-muslim to teach the Islamic studies classes

I agree with that - religious teachers and preachers is fair enough but I hope a muslim school would allow a christian cleaner to maintain the toilets

[ceresa 3]

I suppose I will acclimatise slowly. The flag thing really bothered me but I am used to it now so perhaps the religiousness will slowly fade in my perception..

People flying their own flags in their own country bothered you?

[starlarose 1]

We emigrated to Florida 3 months ago and my wife is a 'Peoplesoft' programmer and has been looking for her speciality

Today she got the first sniff of the right job but look what it says !

'Because this client is a ministry organization they require all employees to be dedicated to the Great Commission as defined by Jesus Christ in the Holy Bible. If you are a bible believing follower of Jesus Christ and want to use your Peoplesoft experience to directly further the cause for Christ, then we ask that you consider contacting us so we can explore this opportunity together.'

Surely barring applicants on grounds of religion or colour is illegal in the U.S. ?

It's exactly the same as - 'no dogs, no blacks, no irish '

As it happens, we regard all religions as mere superstition, but I feel just as sorry for say a moslem or jew etc etc who was an ace peoplesoft programmer but barred from applying on religious grounds

These people would get shut down in the UK...

alan

If the job is with a nonprofit organization and especially if it is based in a religious context it is not illegal to discriminate on religious basis in the hiring process. This is relatively new and happened with the Bush administration. It became an issue for me when I was an intern but as I was already working they could not fire me based on religion.

[PlatyPius 5]

I suppose I will acclimatise slowly. The flag thing really bothered me but I am used to it now so perhaps the religiousness will slowly fade in my perception..

People flying their own flags in their own country bothered you?

Mags was the same way. I think it's just the overt "patriotism" here that puts some people off. Ya gotta admit that the US does go overboard on the "Go USA!" thing...

[Captain Oates 910]

I suppose I will acclimatise slowly. The flag thing really bothered me but I am used to it now so perhaps the religiousness will slowly fade in my perception..

People flying their own flags in their own country bothered you?

You can drive all day in England and never see an English flag. I suppose the nazis and their Nurenberg rallies put us off ranks of huge massed flags.

Before we say the English are not patriotic, we should switch the world to nationalistic

We in Europe know the logical outcome of of all that stuff with gold edges and eagles on the top too !

I think all the 'overly nationalistic' stuff in the USA was just a way of trying to pull all these different people together and it worked generally speaking - so it was a good thing.

BUT - If you don't know when to stop then it ends up as 'We are better than anyone else' , or as Mitt Romney puts it 'This is the finest country that ever existed in the history of the world' - and that's when it starts to get dangerous - ask any Jewish person. It's only a short step from that to declaring other people 'untermench' - inferior countries and a lower class of people who's lives and laws and traditions are not as valuable.

I just spent today in Jacksonville Florida away from the glitsy centre, and boy it didn't look like the finest country in the world. I was scared. Before you say 'well get out then', you should admit that the USA is not perfect by a very long way and that makes it the same as France or England or a whole lot of other countries.

Its only the 'we are better than you' that is getting out of control and it scares the world because we have seen it before in 1933 and it looks very similar to an outsider. When the government engages in torture and kidnapping and claiming the right to kidnap foreigners such as British bankers to be brought back to American courts, then it just adds to this feeling that the USA is claiming the world

The more I read about the history of the US, the more I like the sentiments on which it was based. What is happening now is nothing to do with the future that the founding fathers laid down. I will stay and help a tiny bit to take the US 'back to the future' and recapture the fine sentiments that propelled it right up to recently when it was taken over by merciless religious people. As ghandi said 'I like your Jesus a lot - why can't your Christians be more like him?'

The US will catch up - it followed Britain in abolishing slavery and it followed Britain in votes for women and I think it will follow Britain in getting rid of executions and torture and establishing a health system for all. That is not socialist - it's just civilized.

If I become American and just help by one vote to move it in these directions, I think that I will be more 'patriotic' and add more to enhancing America's well-being than all these tub thumping, flag-waving, cross-erecting supremacists put together

[Krikit 1,163]

I haven't gotten used to the flag thing yet. Maybe if I understood "why"....

[Captain Oates 910]

I haven't gotten used to the flag thing yet. Maybe if I understood "why"....

I have to be careful of not doing what the Brits accuse immigrants to the UK of doing which is coming all the way across the world voluntarily and then complaining about how things are done in the new country and wanting to change everything..

For instance, some Moslem staff asked for their checkouts to be 'no alcohol or pork' checkouts and the supermarket said no so far

Sometime in the next century, the majority of people in the UK will be moslem and that will re-surface and democracy says that the majority rule.

The first immigrants to the US did not start to speak Cherokee and live in teepees - they changed everything to suit what they thought was best.

A Brit in America is not a majority so all I can do (eventually) is put my one little vote in like everyone else.

I will struggle with whether to express my opinions or not because my wife says it can be dangerous here and people are killed by christians for their position on abortion ...

tricky situation and this isnt as safe as debate in the women's institute in Ambridge

Oh well, there is always the sunshine and the cheap dollars so I will take a low profile for now...

Edited February 5, 2008 by saywhat