A clerk at Home Depot was fired recently for wearing a pin saying “One nation under God, indivisible” because he violated the company dress code of being only allowed to wear company-provided pins and buttons. They insist that it had nothing to do with the religious association and said they had offered a new pin of “United We Stand” to replace it, which he refused. He has been wearing the pin for over a year, but only when he started to read the Bible during breaks did they ask him to remove it. Now he is trying to sue for religious discrimination. However, since it’s a privately owned company, it seems that it’d be hard to sue them on the pretense of the First Amendment — which I think is silly. If the law is there for freedom, isn’t it contradictory to exempt privately owned companies from parts of it? Personally I’m not religious, but I still think people should be allowed to express their religious beliefs freely.
- Vivian
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