Salvation Army Sued by Gay Jewish Social Worker
WNBC reports:
The judge said [Zachary] Logan complained that Michelle Pallak, his supervisor, “acted hostilely toward him because of his sexual orientation and religious background. She undermined him in his job performance and treated him differently than she did heterosexual employees.”
Logan, who lives in Astoria, Queens, also says in court papers that Pallak called him offensive names related to his sexual orientation and remarked to colleagues after he was fired that she hoped he “did not play the gay card.”
According to Judge Braun, religious organizations are allowed to make hiring and firing decisions based upon religious principles, but this doesn’t give them license to harass employees:
“However,” the judge said, “those limited exemptions for religious organizations are a far cry from letting them harass their employees and treat the employees in an odiously discriminatory manner during their employment, and to use derogatory expressions toward the employees.”
Americans United reports that in another case against the Salvation Army, a U.S District Judge ruled against Salvation Army employees who where fired because they disagreed with its religious policies and despite the fact that their jobs were funded almost entirely by the government:
The NYCLU called the ruling in Lown v. Salvation Army a “mixed” one. “Unfortunately,” NYCLU’s statement read, “the Court’s decision offers no relief for the Salvation Army’s social service employees who are the victims of religious discrimination in programs funded almost entirely by the government. The court has, wrongly, we believe, exempted the Salvation Army’s government-funded programs from civil rights laws that generally prohibit discrimination against employees based on religion or creed.”
The Salvation Army consistently denies that it does anything wrong, but the discrimination lawsuits against them just keep mounting. It's as if they think that they should be immune from the same laws which govern all other organizations, even when they are receiving government money to administer federal assistance programs. It appears that the Salvation Army is on the forefront of Christian Right efforts to undermine the public good in pursuit of narrow religious goals.
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Comments
This article is highly inaccurate. For one, there is absolutely no article on the wnbc website that says anything about The Salvation Army sued. I highly suggest this article be removed as it is malicious and an attempt give a bad name to a well regarded organization.
What’s inaccurate in it?
When you follow the link, it says that the article is “no longer available” — i.e., it was there, but isn’t now. If you look, you’ll notice that this was posted three years ago. News sites often remove articles after a while.
How hard would it be to do a web search for stories about “Zachary Logan” and the “Salvation Army”? It’s not too hard, and when you do you get several stories.
Which do you think is the more ethical and sensible behavior: to do some research to see if the story is still carried elsewhere, or to accuse a person of lying?
No, the story stays. I do hope you will return and apologize, though.
Thanks for the posting! It really helped me with writing one of my papers on FBO’s
As for the lady up top, she should really research the impact of allowing FBO’s to discriminate and still use our tax dollars in the mean time!