Religious Discrimination Against a Witch?
This is too weird.
But not too weird to cost the employer some attorneys’ fees if this witch has a lawyer!
Questions:
- Do some people (adults) seriously claim to be witches?
- If they sincerely believe this is true and consider it to be a religious belief, are they protected against discrimination based on this belief?
Answers:
- Apparently so.
- Probably so.
If the case described below goes through to summary judgment or trial, we might get definitive answers, at least as applied to its peculiar facts.
A bus driver in Minnesota is suing . . . for religious discrimination, saying the school superintendent got her fired from the bus company for which she worked by implying she was a witch. . .
Julie Carpenter says she is no witch and that she is, in fact, a pagan, arguing that she was discriminated against because of her religious beliefs . . . . She has filed a religious-bias complaint with the . . . EEOC . . . .
Her attorney showed the newspaper a letter that he said [the] school Superintendent . . . sent to the bus company to urge it to fire Carpenter. The letter cites instances in which Carpenter informed “other bus garage employees that she is a witch.”
Carpenter says the allegations in the letter are false. She says she is a pagan, a worshiper of a polytheistic religion. “I believe in a god and goddesses and their names can change for any given moment,” Carpenter told the newspaper. “This has been my belief since 1989.”
The letter said that Carpenter was unsuitable to serve as bus driver. “Ms. Carpenter does not serve as a role model nor is suitable to perform transportation services for the Princeton School District ,” the letter said.
The letter also noted that Carpenter was once in a relationship with Jonathon “The Impaler” Sharkey, who is running for governor and claims to be a vampire, the newspaper reports.
HR.BLR.com (originally Minneapolis Star Tribune): “The Vampire, the Pagan, and the Letter”
For further reading:
Compare Wicca, witchcraft, and Neo-pagan religions.
Look up Jonathon “The Impaler” Sharkey, and see his sicko campaign commercial (not for the faint of heart).
I’d say he can’t be serious, but he’s running for the same office to which Jesse “The Body” Ventura was elected — and I didn’t think he was serious either.
Finally, read about the definition of what qualifies as religion, according to EEOC regulations. (Note: this subject is not a simple one, has been kicked around by the Supreme Court, and thus is beyond the scope of this post, which began as a bit of almost-Friday, almost-humor.)
Hundreds of years ago, we’d burn people who seriously claimed to be witches; when I was growing up in the pre-political-correctness era, we’d laugh and tease them mercilessly; now we let them sue!
Seriously, though, it is a pretty stupid reason to fire someone!
Photo credit: Skip the Filler via flickr
Perhaps the employer just thought the whole witch concept was so silly that it perceived the employee as mentally disabled… Hmmm, looks like a no win either way.