Can't Talk About That Here

Buona sera. It's been a while since I talked about my buddy Neil. Since he had some circumstances that fit in with what I've been talking about off and on the past few months, he's in the spotlight. Wave to the nice people, Neil. I'm telling your story.


At the Big Soulless Corporation where he works, there was a kind of "meet and greet" for new employees. One of the higher-level managers facilitated the thing, made announcements, had people introduce themselves and so on. Some of the questions he asked made Neil a bit introspective. He went up to that manager later, after most of the crowd had dispersed, and said that he had changed a great deal over the past few years.


"In what ways?", the manager asked.


Neil mentioned that he liked reading apologetics and logic things (including mine). When asked, "What the hell is apologetics?", Neil told him that it was the defense and presentation of the Bible and Christian faith.


"Oh, religious stuff, then", the manager said. 


At that moment, a managerette that was standing next to him said, "This is where I leave!", and briskly walked away. This strikes me as amazingly rude, too. Neil and the manager continued to talk a bit after that. There was no preaching, Bible quoting or anything of that nature.


The next day, a lower-level manager told Neil that the other ones were flustered because "You're not supposed to talk about religion here". Neil startled her by saying that such a directive is discriminatory. (One Mafioso was reported to have told people under him that they cannot wear "religious" jewelry and so forth. I can see frowning on a "repent or burn in Hell" shirt, but he's overly restrictive.) If they make a fuss or try to do gag orders, Neil is more than willing to get them straightened out by Alliance Defense Fund, Liberty Counsel, Rutherford Institute and others. Big Soulless Corporation is terrified of negative publicity, and they would get it in spades.


Hypocritically, the Big Soulless Corporation allowed a big astrological symbol to be prominently displayed on a white board. Neil had to see this every day for over a month, and was offended by it. But he didn't act like a whining leftist, he just tolerated it. BSC claims to value "relationships", "integrity", "compassion" and other stuff — all of which Neil has seen proved to be lies. They also claim to respect "diversity", including race, age, culture, experience, background and so on. Yet, they demand uniformity of performance. Pretty much a clone club.


So, there is Neil's example of religious discrimination. But I promise you, if he was a Mohammedan in full garb, no manager would dare say anything about it, capice? It's "in" to kick Christians today, you know.