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Isn't this illegal?

Brendy

Thinker
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Mar 15, 2008
Messages
149
Sorry if someone has pointed this out before.

Since it is illegal in the USA for employers to discriminate against someone for their religious beliefs, isn't the Creation Museum breaking the law?

Here is a link to one of their job openings:
http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/jobs/employment.asp

They say:
"All job applicants need to supply a written statement of their testimony, a statement of what they believe regarding creation and a statement that they have read and can support the AiG statement of faith."


Please explain how the creation museum can get away with this.

What we need to do is get hundreds of very qualified athiest sales people to apply for this job. Then when they hire a less qualified creationist, we sue enter a class action lawsuit against the museum. Bankrupt it, and it closes.

That would be fun, no?
 
Since it is illegal in the USA for employers to discriminate against someone for their religious beliefs, isn't the Creation Museum breaking the law?
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Exceptions are made for the religious:

Under Title VII, religious organizations are permitted to give employment preference to members of their own religion.[42] The exception applies only to those institutions whose “purpose and character are primarily religious.”[43] That determination is to be based on “[a]ll significant religious and secular characteristics.”[44] Although no one factor is dispositive, significant factors to consider that would indicate whether an entity is religious include:

  • Do its articles of incorporation state a religious purpose?
  • Are its day-to-day operations religious (e.g., are the services the entity performs, the product it produces, or the educational curriculum it provides directed toward propagation of the religion)?
  • Is it not-for-profit?
  • Is it affiliated with or supported by a church or other religious organization? [45]

This exception is not limited to religious activities of the organization.[46] However, it only allows religious organizations to prefer to employ individuals who share their religion.[47] The exception does not allow religious organizations otherwise to discriminate in employment on protected bases other than religion, such as race, color, national origin, sex, age, or disability.[48] Thus, a religious organization is not permitted to engage in racially discriminatory hiring by asserting that a tenet of its religious beliefs is not associating with people of other races. Similarly, a religious organization is not permitted to deny fringe benefits to married women but not to married men by asserting a religiously based view that only men can be the head of a household.
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http://www.eeoc.gov/policy/docs/religion.html#_Toc203359488
 
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Also, a strong connection to church groups in the assigned area would make the applicant more qualified, something and atheist is much less likely to have.

Also, that reads to the public as though the argument can't be won by honest discourse and so those sneaky Darwinists pulled an underhanded stunt. And that would be a fair characterization of that kind of trick.

The museum as it stands is a wonderful monument to some very ill thought out beliefs.
 
Cavemonster said:
Also, that reads to the public as though the argument can't be won by honest discourse and so those sneaky Darwinists pulled an underhanded stunt. And that would be a fair characterization of that kind of trick.
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Well I was really just joking about the class action lawsuit. That'd be years of work. Waste of time.
 
Brendy said:
In my opinion that should be illegal. Looks like the eeoc caved in to religious lobbying.
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I don't think so.

If you're going to allow religious organizations to exist in society, its pretty pointless if you don't allow them to be run by followers of that religion.
 
If the organization received federal funds then maybe part of that funding would demand some accountability. I can't say if the Creation Museum gets federal funds or not. I will, however, bet $5 that it does not.
 
An employer can consider the religion of the applicant if it is a bone fide requirement of the job.

For example, a church is not required to consider an atheist for the priesthood and an atheist organization may discrimination against hiring Christians in certain situations.

Seems fair to me.
 
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Brendy said:
In my opinion that should be illegal. Looks like the eeoc caved in to religious lobbying.
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A great example of how being atheist doesn't automatically imbue one with critical thinking skills.

- edit to add

I'd also note that job opening was for a sales postion with AiG, not the Creation Museum per se. I can't imagine they'd apply the same doctrinaire vigor to a server at Noah's Cafe.
 
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quixotecoyote said:
Exceptions are made for the religious:

http://www.eeoc.gov/policy/docs/religion.html#_Toc203359488
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It seems to me that this has the significant implication that the Creation Museum can't, therefore, claim to be serving a scientific purpose, but must admit to being primarily a religious body. Since the post being advertised involves booking tours of the museum, there's also an implicit an admission that these tours are not for the purposes of scientific education. Maybe it would be worth making that implication more widely known.

Dave
 
I agree that they can hire anyone they want on religious grounds, but that means that the creation museum is, IN FACT, a religious building and not a science building. It's facade and presentation attempt to give it a look like a scientific museum, which is (in my mind dishonest).

SHouldn't it be clearly labeled that it's a place of religious worship and not a place of scientific education?
 
minorwork said:
If the organization received federal funds then maybe part of that funding would demand some accountability. I can't say if the Creation Museum gets federal funds or not. I will, however, bet $5 that it does not.
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KingMerv00 said:
An employer can consider the religion of the applicant if it is a bone fide requirement of the job.

For example, a church is not required to consider an atheist for the priesthood and an atheist organization may discrimination against hiring Christians in certain situations.

Seems fair to me.
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As an outsider (as non-American), I'd say I agree with you both. Does anyone have evidence for minorwork's assertion about accountability?

As a case in point, an anecdote from the Dutch situation. Through a historical compromise between religious and seculars, we have a freedom in the school system which means that anyone can start a school and receive full governmental funding for it (provided they have enough pupils to start with, and comply with the minimum exam requirements). In effect, about 2/3 of the schools were founded on religious principles. Many of them - especially the RC ones - hardly do anything about it nowadays, apart from maybe some Xmas or Easter ceremonies.

My mom was a secondary school teacher in English (retired), and atheist (still is :)). She always encountered problems when applying at religious schools. She could get a temp job at a religious school, filling in for a sick leave or some such, but she would never get tenure. She felt (rightly IMNSHO) discriminated against.
 
Soapy Sam said:
Not much point in a Muslim wanting to be Pope, now is there?
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Or much point to a jew being a doctor if all the hospitals are christian.

If the jobs duties are religious then religion should be a requirement, if the persons job is not religious it should still be illegal to discriminate. Say a mega evangelical church hiring a catholic as a janitor.

This would require them to admit that the primary purpose of their tour guides is religious, and that being a tour guide there is a religious job.
 
quixotecoyote said:
Exceptions are made for the religious:



http://www.eeoc.gov/policy/docs/religion.html#_Toc203359488
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Technically the First Ammendment makes the exception for religion, though I do marvel at politicians stepping in the way, kind of the way David Spade at the end of Coneheads got in the way of giving the scepter to the emperor, so he could give it to the emperor himself, pretending like he was the one responsible, hoping the emperor would be grateful to him.
 
Beerina said:
Technically the First Ammendment makes the exception for religion, though I do marvel at politicians stepping in the way, kind of the way David Spade at the end of Coneheads got in the way of giving the scepter to the emperor, so he could give it to the emperor himself, pretending like he was the one responsible, hoping the emperor would be grateful to him.
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Does it thought? Were in the first amendment does it prevent from jobplace discrimination for your religion? It does not cover free speech at work. Just tell your boss what you really think of them.
 
ponderingturtle said:
Or much point to a jew being a doctor if all the hospitals are christian.

If the jobs duties are religious then religion should be a requirement, if the persons job is not religious it should still be illegal to discriminate. Say a mega evangelical church hiring a catholic as a janitor.

This would require them to admit that the primary purpose of their tour guides is religious, and that being a tour guide there is a religious job.
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Not too much of a question in that regard. Creationism is, by definition, a religious claim.
 
It wasn't the EEOC caving in; the exception's written right into the civil rights act of 64.

Religious organizations are exempt, so even the popcorn counter at the museum can hire only fundies if they want to.
 
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