Oct

23

I Almost Felt Bad

October 23, 2009 by Brandon 7 Comments

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7 Comments so far:

1. John-Paul Mitchell on October 28, 2009 12:42 pm

   You are wrong over this issue.

   If someone was fired for wearing a “One nation under Ceiling Cat” button, I’m sure you and the ACLU would be up in arms over this. I think your personal disagreement with the individual’s views are coloring your judgment. You have no idea what the law is.

   The Supreme Court has ruled that no private or public organization, other than a religious one, can curtail your civil rights, including your right to express your own view of religion, for instance, Sikhs wearing turbans. It does not effect job performance.

   Check these out before you say anything else:
   Sherbert v. Verner (1963)
   United States v. National Treasury Employees Union (1995)

   See here:
   http://religiousfreedom.lib.virginia.edu/court/#free

   So, post a retraction or defend your position.
   You are f/w on this issue.

2. dromedary hump on October 30, 2009 5:54 am

   when a jerk’s religious delusion takes precedence over his livlihood, the guy will get no sympathy from me.

   Maybe he can get a job at a christiuan book store (assuming he can read) and wear a crown of thorns if he likes.

   Meanwhile, keep their fricken god off of my lumber,power tools, and toilet seats.

3. John-Paul Mitchell on October 30, 2009 12:10 pm

   I had first thought to berate you and the moderators of your website for being bullish, moronic hypocrits. But then I realized that the 20 year old in Colorado was wrong; he was wrong about his faith, he was wrong about his rights, he was wrong about his justification to sue. And I realized that U.S. Supreme Court, in a case called “United States v. National Treasury Employees Union” doesn’t apply nor does the other that I cited. I also realize that I do not deserve a response of any kind.

   As of today I am affixing the “Don’t believe in God? You’re not alone.” bumper sticker to my car. I hope I don’t get fired… but if I do, it’s obviously because I was not within my rights to park this sign in my school’s parking lot.

4. Brandon on November 2, 2009 5:51 am

   Uniform is uniform. A job can tell you what you can and cannot wear.

   It isn’t your right to have a job, you must generally follow the rules your employer sets for you. If you don’t, they can fire you.

   Where I live, in Pennsylvania, employment is “at will” employment. You can be canned whenever for whatever. No reason given.

   I would not approve of anyone wearing a “One Nation, under Ceiling Cat” button to work either, and if they were fired, I’d say they deserved it. Just like I would if they wore a button that said, “There Is No God” or any other atheistic statement you could think of.

   It does not belong at work. Do it on your own time.

   As for Sikhs wearing turbans, that’s a slightly different issue because their turbans don’t have statements printed on them which some people may disagree with or find offensive.

   As for your comment regarding the Supreme Court deciding fun things, let’s ask students in public high schools whether or not their civil rights are being curtailed when they’re told they can’t wear specific things. Or what about the local bar down the street which doesn’t allow people to wear hats inside of it. Is that curtailing my civil rights? My freedom of speech?

   Private businesses can dictate these things. Again, it isn’t your right to work there, nor is it even your right to enter the building if they choose not to allow you. You work there and enter there based on agreed conditions. If you don’t follow this legal contract, then they have the legal right to toss you.

5. Brandon on November 2, 2009 6:39 am

   Oh, and my apologies for not approving your comment until today. I didn’t get an email notification about it, so I need to look into that. But now that you’re approved, your comments won’t have to be moderated for approval.

6. John-Paul Mitchell on November 2, 2009 2:59 pm

   Brandon,
   Thanks for responding. Glad to know someone’s out there thinking about things. Although I still disagree, I’ll try to not be as cynical…

   Ok, so high school students DO NOT have the right to wear what they want… they are not citizens, they are minor citizens. And where I live, in Texas, two laws, one stating that your child is actually your property and the other stating that the school and it’s faculty act in loco parentas until the child is reclaimed at the end of the actually makes the students the legal property of the faculty while they are on campus. So the point you’re attempting to make there, I believe, is quite moot.

   And yes, private establishments have the right say who wears what in their place; however, the guy in Colorado was not a patron and they weren’t serving him or denying him service. So, I believe that the relationship does not exist and thus the same judgment does not apply.

   Now, there might have been a contract about dress code and he may have been made fully aware of it and that fact may not have been included as a point in the original story. However, and this is a big point, I think, the management did not get a customer complaint about it, nor an employee complaint, at least not one that was reported. Perhaps this did happen. If so, fine, it establishes the button as a deterrent to a business function. But in the absence of such evidence and assuming nothing but the facts we have presented, the guy was only reprimanded after several MONTHS of wearing it at the just immediately after he chose to begin bringing a Christian bible to work to read on his lunch break. Yes, they documented the hell out of his write-ups and their requests. However, they only started this process after he began bringing a bible. That has got to be a serious buffoon and incredibly insensitive person that running the show there. Convincing this guy to take the button off could have gone a lot more smoothly, but as it stands it looks like Home Depot has actually infringed his first amendment rights of free expression in a way that showed no signs of upsetting their business.

   Maybe I’m wrong here, but I think I have a right to put an inflammatory, but non-indecent bumper sticker on my car, park it on school grounds and not have to answer to even Jack in the Box about what the hell I’m doing with that on my car. It’s also a different situation because the parking lot is not the actual premises of the school and it can’t regulated as such. (This applies to all buildings, by the way. Premises does not describe the entirety of the property, thus a firearm could be stored in a car legally even in a school or court house parking lot.) My fear is the slippery slope; at what point can an employer not dictate your behavior, speech, expression, dress, lifestyle or religion? If I haven’t agreed to it, where does the assumption of consent end? Can I post a blog challenging my bosses religion? His politics? What about if I bring an iPhone to work at Microsoft? Should I just go ahead and get the company logo tatted on my wrist? (Of course some of that is ridiculous hyperbole.) Point is, do we have companies and government legally define for us what our rights are? Not according to the constitution of the U.S. (Which,by the way is not a document of the government, but a document which establishes the government.) If a tyranny is what happens when the people fear the government, and if liberty is the result of the government fearing the people, then what is the result of the people and government fearing the employers?

   Maybe I just need to go breathe into a bag and calm down.

7. Brandon on November 2, 2009 3:27 pm

   John, not to go backwards with your post, but I fully agree you have the right to put whatever you want to on your car in the form of a bumper sticker, and you have the right to park that where ever you want to park it… unless you’re parking it on private property, of course. But I think that’s a different scenario than what’s playing out in this case here.

   Regardless if this guy wore the button unnoticed for several months, he was wearing it and it was against policy. Bible or not. He agreed to these policies when he took up employment at the location. The gentleman was given the opportunity to remove the button and continue about his business, but he refused, and clearly stated why he refused. In my opinion, this guy was doing this because he has a Christ complex. I think he was pushing the envelope to get a reaction, judging from his comments. That is obviously pure speculation, but it just rubs me that way.

   And as I’ve stated prior, it wouldn’t matter if this was a button proclaiming Jesus, Muhammad, Krishna, Ceiling Cat, or if it said all of the above didn’t exist; if any individual wore a button that stated anything along these lines, in opposition to the company’s dress code policy, and refused to remove it upon request of their supervisor after being told of the policy (he cannot feign ignorance), they should be fired. The company has the right to tell its employees what they can wear while they are on the clock, because they are representing that company, not their individual beliefs. That’s why such statements are almost always not allowed in the work place. Where I work, you can’t even mention your religious or political beliefs, let alone wear something boldly proclaiming it like that.

   We have to accept what a company tells while we work for them. Again, it is not our right to work there, they don’t have to hire you and you don’t have to apply. Jobs are not forced on people, if you don’t like the rules where you work, find employment elsewhere with different rules. I worked in places where I couldn’t have my tattoo displayed. Nevermind the fact that it isn’t offensive at all, it’s just ivy vines on my arm. Doesn’t matter. The company didn’t want people exposing tattoos because obviously only “certain types of people” had tattoos and they didn’t want those kind of people representing them. Eventually I found work elsewhere that allowed me to have my sleeves rolled up.

   Frankly I don’t disagree with you on the point that I think that this situation we find ourselves in is somewhat retarded. Trust me, I would love to wear a shirt to work that says something inflammatory about religion or God. And because I would like to and would want that ability myself, I wouldn’t take that away from some Jesus Freak who would want to wear an opposing shirt.

   The problem is that this causes conflict in the work place because some people get too bent out of shape when someone disagrees with their world view. So we have to play with kid gloves in the work place to avoid offending anyone. We can’t have someone offended! Perish the thought!

   As for your statements regarding children not being citizens, the United States Constitution would disagree with you. If you are born within the United States, you automatically gain citizenship, as well as through various other means. In fact, effective in 2001, the Child Citizenship Act of 2000 provided that a non-US citizen child (aged under 18) with a US citizen parent, and in the custody of that parent, automatically acquired US citizenship. Right there is case in point that you do not need to be an adult to be considered a citizen. True, certain privileges are granted to you upon reaching specified ages, such as being 18 to vote, but your rights as a citizen, no matter what the age, are never revoked due to your age. You have the freedom of speech all your life, from the time you are born a citizen to the time you die.

   Now state laws may try to wiggle with this, but if pressed to the Supreme Court, I would likely think most of these state laws would ultimately be stricken down. There was a Supreme Court case, if I remember correctly, that ruled in favor of student expression in public high schools that forced the students to wear uniforms.