http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_god_button_home_depot
So, how do the righties handle it? It’s like the perfect scenario where their two cherished beliefs - the existence of a christian god and the mandate that this entire nation get on board with that concept as it is fundamental to ordered society, and the belief that government should get the eff out of people’s lives and not tell them what to do and think, and let private actors do as they please – are diametrically opposed to each other.
No really. The two are not absolutes in either case. Home Depot has a perfect right to fire the worker.
That does not mean its actions were wise or useful at all; that’s as may be. There has been a growing intolerance of anyone displaying religious sentiment in public (except during campaign speeches), and I say that’s rather stupid. I don’t agree with Islam, but I wouldn’t fire someone who wore a button saying “There is not God but God.” Now would I fire a Hindu for having a small desktop shrine or a Jew for… uh… well… doing something Jewish (sorry, drawing total blank right now).
I believe in tolerance. I do not necessarily believe in approval, and I’m free to seperate the two. However, if Home Depot decided it didn’t want to support the worker’s message, that’s their right. And more likely it just wanted to avoid being “offensive” to whomever happened to walk in the door, or wanted to maintain a veyr high level of professionalism (i.e., eviscerate any trace of personality ).
Eh, its not really clear that Home Depot had any particular problem with the content of the guys pin so much as they didn’t want him wearing any not officially approved pin. For all we know, the same thing would’ve happened if he’d worn a “hooray for cookies” button. Just from the article, it sounded like his boss was in a pissy mood and decided to give him crap about breaking a minor regulation, and the guy told him to take a hike, leading to his firing.
Note the Home Depot was in Okeechobee. Not exactly a hot-bed of atheism.
Don’t forget that not all “righties” are with Jesus. I am a “rightie” economically, but have no use for “the Lord”.
I see it this way…assuming the business is in an “at-will” state, they can legally do whatever they want in terms of firing the guy, assuming no civil rights discrimination.
Personally, I prefer it when people wear buttons like this. That makes it easy to figure who the smart ones are
Self described Righty here chiming in here. The First Amendment applies to to .gov not Home Depot. Their business, their rules. Most RW leaning boards that I frequent agree with me, except for the occasional wing nut crying out for a boycott of the Depot.
Home Depot has a rule that says something like “Only buttons issued by the company may be worn as part of the company uniform”. Employee breaks rule. Home Depot says hey, stop doing that. Employee refuses. Home Depot fires him. Not seeing any problem here.
I doubt you’ll find any huge contingent of conservatives calling for government action to cure this problem.
In my view, the Home Depot has every right to dictate what uniform elements their employees wear, and I don’t have the slightest concern with this firing.
But let’s pretend I did.
What would be my “righty” reaction?
Calling for a boycott of Home Depot would not intrude the least on the second “cherished belief” the OP mentions. A boycott is, after all, private actors doing as they please. If I felt the firing was unjustified, and the remedy for it was cutting up my Home Depot credit card and shopping at Lowes from now on, I’d be perfectly consistent with that second cherished belief.
So I’d be curious to ask the OP – or, indeed, anyone else – is anyone aware of any “righty” source that suggests the firing should have been illegal, that the fired employee has or should have some sort of legal remedy at hand?
what if the person is fired for being a certain color or gender? to many, religious affiliation is (just as) immutable. so it’s not entirely out of the realm of possibilities that people would take offense to being told that they couldn’t express an immutable componnent of their personality for 8/24ths of a day. like the employee apparently did.
it’s not a pit thread - it’s a valid question as to whether people on the political right have more regard for their religiosity or the government’s staying out of this issue. there are many times commentators on the right bring up the notion of “christian values” as guiding lights for the political direction of this country - it’s not unreasonable that some of these commentators would therefore take offense when a private actor is telling another party to rid themselves of their religious iconography.
Probably, though again, the Home Depot policy seems to be that they don’t want any non-approved buttons, so it’s not like they were gunning for a religious controversy. Presumably the point of the blanket ban was to avoid having managers have to figure out whose buttons might piss people off or were some obscure reference to something offensive
Well the guy ultimately was a self-important twit. The idea that having some piece of plastic trash pinned to your clothes supports God and Country in any way is childish facile nonsense.
).