Here are the EEOC’s own guidelines regarding religious discrimination. There is one scenario involving a Catholic.

I know someone personally who cane very close to losing a job for attending Mass and in so doing limiting the hours he was available to work overtime.

But of course Catholics are always the lucky ones who enjoy “privilege”, and never themselves ever victimized, so that makes it right and good to use them as punching bags and scapegoats.

Such is how it is when the principle of equality under the law is replaced by the principle that presumptions of innocence or guilt should be based on the identity of the victims rather than the actual facts of the case.

Yeah, yet another scenario in which the Catholic and her boss come off as the jerks again.

I think I might lodge an EEO complaint against the EEOC.

They should deep-six their cartoonish scenarios and just put out the rule: all or none get to be late because of religious observance.

The difficulty is that the current administration has populated all of the executive agencies with bureaucrats hostile to religion and to religious liberty. Even though Christians are certainly not a minority when it comes to voting, nobody actually votes on these agencies and their workers, and the regulations they issue are only slightly accountable to anybody. Recall the quote from Peter Berger, about how America is ‘a nation of Indians ruled by Swedes.’

Except for the fact that it is almost certainly based on an inaccurate assumption—that the offending scenario was cooked up by the EEOC. In all likelihood, it originated with someone in the HR department of the state university where the blogger works.

Here are the EEOC’s own guidelines regarding religious discrimination. There is one scenario involving a Catholic.

Joanne, a retail store clerk, is frequently 10-15 minutes late for her shift on several days per week when she attends Mass at a Catholic Church across town. Her manager, Donald, has never disciplined her for this tardiness, and instead filled in for her at the cash register until she arrived, stating that he understood her situation. On the other hand, Yusef, a newly hired clerk who is Muslim, is disciplined by Donald for arriving 10 minutes late for his shift even though Donald knows it is due to his attendance at services at the local Mosque. While Donald can require all similarly situated employees to be punctual, he is engaging in disparate treatment based on religion by disciplining only Yusef and not Joanne absent a legitimate nondiscriminatory reason for treating them differently.

Or you just let us know when the negative stereotypes, caricatures, or outright dehumanization get severe enough that we’re allowed to mind.

Since obviously you don’t think Catholics have the same right to be offended by attacks that “legitimate” or “worthy” or “deserving” groups have.

You would think everyone would at least getting a memo informing them that Those Who Really Matter have decided what we should all believe, who we should be, and what we should do, and continue to cling to the old ways – being unacceptable ‘privilege’ – must get with the program At Once.

(Or is that what this EEOC training stuff is? The memo?)

Because God knows just because a culture has done something a certain way for X number of years doesn’t mean you have the right to continue doing that, if some smart young kid has decided he’s got a new, better way. How selfish of you to not adopt his new, better way ASAP! It is your OBLIGATION to be whatever the new kids think you ought to be! Failure to do so is a sign that you are *spoiled* as well as culturally insensitive!

What a ridiculous way of looking at the world. I see now why certain young people I have spoken to laugh so hard at the phrase “privilege”. It certainly is about privilege – but not in the way the users imagine…

I once worked in a university art history department. Our small unit’s sole focus was Christian art. One of the young art historians made a snide remark about Christianity and I suggested it could hurt feelings. She assured me that “no one around here believes in anything like that”. Well, I was a practicing Catholic. So was our boss and so were the experts on Byzantine and Romanesque art. My atheist colleague’s own office mate was married to an Episcopalian priest. I didn’t know what or if the other few colleagues believed. She was amazed that so many of us were believers and wondered why we hadn’t told her. I suggested that maybe we didn’t feel comfortable doing so. I know that I usually keep mum because of the hostility that comes from some people.

We briefly had a student intern with us, a Moslem student who prayed at regular intervals—right there in the office. Want to guess who “freaked out” and asked to have her replaced? To keep the peace, our boss set aside the conference room for the intern and suggested she keep the door shut when she prayed.

(I didn’t grab his hands, but then we’re both men, big burly men.)