Some people like to falsely claim that prejudice against faith is the last acceptable prejudice in America. When was the last time, though, you heard of someone saying that they would refuse to hire Christians or theists? We can find just that, however, being said against atheists.

Jim Jordan writes:

Last, I don't hire atheists in my business either. After all, if someone doesn't acknowledge God, how are they going to acknowledge management? Next, they'll be calling that discrimination.

Well, what definition of "discrimination" does not include refusing to hire someone simply because they don't share your theism? Obviously that's a form of discrimination; more interesting, though, is the question of whether it constitutes a form of illegal discrimination. I think that is almost certainly does. Jim Jordan couldn't legally refuse to hire someone because they didn't share his beliefs about Jesus Christ or because they didn't share his monotheism, so unless he happens to run a church, he'd be violating the law if he acted on what he says above.

Now, merely saying that you would discriminate against atheists isn't by itself illegal, so it's not as though Jim Jordan has broken any laws by posting this. At the same time, though, if he ever does refuse to hire an atheist or fire an atheist already working for him, he has now established that he is prejudiced and bigoted towards atheists in a manner that would incline him to violate the law. Any such atheist can use the above quote in a lawsuit against Jim Jordan and, depending upon the circumstances, they might be successful because of it.

I hope that Jim Jordan never actually does act on his bigotry and discriminate against atheists, but if he does I'm glad that he has spelled out his feelings in advance so that atheists who are victimized by him will have some recourse if they choose to pursue a legal case against him.

 

Update: Jim Jordan has deleted the post in question. Was his conscience nagging at him? Probably not, since there is no notice of his having changed his mind. Perhaps he simply didn't want to leave behind evidence that his bigotry would cause him to discriminate. That would make his dishonest as well as a bigot. My, what a fine example of Christian morality.

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