Just when I was finally getting over that Jehovah Witness who refused a blood transfusion after giving birth, along comes this story.
Sabrina Balentine, 19, was working at a Razzoo’s restaurant in Mesquite Texas. We all know the type of place. Young, good looking waitresses who walk around with permanent smiles serving up drinks and singing Happy Birthday every five minutes to some poor sap.
What employers didn’t know is that Sabrina is a proud, card-carrying member of the Jehovah’s Witness cult. And as such, she is not allowed to sing the devilish Happy Birthday song; not to herself or anyone else for that matter. Sabrina, as does the rest of her wacky clan, claims that the Bible forbids celebrating birthdays and many holidays. Her employers suggested that she could just clap and leave the singing to the others. But even that somehow is against her beliefs.
Make a long story short… Sabrina won’t follow company policy. Company tries to compromise. Sabrina is offended. Sabrina claims she was discriminated. Sabrina is terminated. Company claims she left willingly.
BEGIN RANT:
If you can’t perform the duties at your job for whatever reason, including religion… then get the hell out. You have no right to a job in which you are unwilling to perform the required tasks. It’s that simple and I have absolutely no respect for your religion when you bring it to work with you.
I think the next time my employer asks me to travel out of the country for business, I’ll say that airplanes are against my beliefs and that an elegant cruise is in order. Oh wait, I’d be fired in a heartbeat for not performing my tasks like a normal human being. And to be honest, I would have no issue with that. Look at it from the company’s standpoint. They are hiring people without knowledge of their personal and religious beliefs. The least they could expect is that the person applying has a clue as to what the business does and requires of them. Is it possible that this brainwashed 19-year-old cult freak didn’t realize that the restaurant does birthday celebrations? Sure, but it doesn’t matter. She was asked to perform a task and would not do it. Fine, don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out.
And now this crap is going to makes its way through the legal system? Shame on her.
END RANT:
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Agreed 100%. Let me throw another log on the fire. The company is prohibited from ASKING what a person’s religious beliefs are before hiring them by federal law if I am not mistaken. So they can’t ask before hiring them, then they can’t terminate them after the fact when they find out that the employee can not perform the job as required due to their religious beliefs? What kind of wacky noise is that?
Its the kind that makes no sense. Everyone has a personal responsibility. Signing up for a job where one of the daily duties is against your religion just seems like people fishing for persecution to yell about. They wouldn’t change the world for my crazy beliefs! Oh how persecuted we are, they hired me just to torture me with Birthday songs! This would be like me going to church and suing them for preaching to me.
what BS, that we have to tip-toe around religious people and their many “sensitivities”. sick and tired of that crap. next up a muslim waitress that won’t serve pork and advises patrons not to drink alcohol. or an amish bartender who won’t use any form of modern tech. like it’s not enough the xtian religious right is ruining media content for the rest of us.
Well, I was stupefied after reading it. It just seems to me a form of entrapment by the employee. She knew the firm cannot ask her religious beliefs and also that she can use the beliefs as excuse to not fulfill her duties. I doubt she expected a raise out of not complying to what she agreed when signing the contract.
I think the firm will settle it out of courts with ex-employee reaping monetary benefits. It is a sad world we live in, where blackmailers win because others try to be correct, politically and otherwise.
Also to my understanding even police are not allowed to use entrapment so why should others? So far using entrapment is a crime, well at my part of the world at least.
I disagree. I can’t believe that birthday singing is so essential to the job that she can’t perform her duties without doing it. Employers should make reasonable accomadations for religious beliefs, however absurd they may be.
I can’t get too worked up over this particular case. It seems that the deciding point would be whether singing “Happy Birthday” was mentioned as part of the job description. If it was, then she’s outta luck. If it wasn’t, then the company is out of luck.
Frankly, she’s doing the customers a favor by refusing. The only restaurant b-day song I like is the one that goes, in full, “This is your birthday song. It isn’t very long.”
(We’ll ignore the fact that singing “Happy Birthday” without a license is actionable itself.)
More important are the cases of pharmacists refusing to fill scripts that violate their own beliefs, as with contraception.
I think we’re missing the point here. Sure, religious beliefs are important. But can someone please tell why birthdays are seen as wrong. Seriously, it’s just so damn stupid.
I think this whole thing is silly as well, but seriously, how important is it to have one more employee singing Happy Birthday off-key to some jerk who probably doesn’t want the extra attention anyway? If I had been the shift manager or whatever in that situation, I would have simply told her to go help out in kitchen or something while the rest of us sang our little song, and the situation would have ended there.
I like to think that I’ve got a fairly decent work ethic, and I am all for the “your boss told you to do it, so do it” attitude, but in my experience as a shift manager in a fast food restaurant, you’ve got to pick your battles. There’s so much going on in a restaurant, so many little details that are important to the minute-to-minute operations of the place, that one employee not wanting to sing Happy Birthday would have been the least of my worries.
gasmonso:
From:
http://www.watchtower.org/library/rq/article_11.htm
“4. Birthdays: The only two birthday celebrations spoken of in the Bible were held by persons who did not worship Jehovah. (Genesis 40:20-22; Mark 6:21, 22, 24-27) The early Christians did not celebrate birthdays. The custom of celebrating birthdays comes from ancient false religions. True Christians give gifts and have good times together at other times during the year.”
So, there you go…
As I understand it, they’re trying to distance themselves from other “false” religions. The celebration of birthdays is not commanded or even really mentioned in any teachings of the Bible, and since a lot of “false” relgions do it, they deem it to be something to stay away from.
While I don’t agree with them, I do think that most holidays and celebrations like birthdays are fairly stupid and pointless, generally consisting of people feeling coerced by external, social pressures to be nice to other people, and thereby almost completely devoid of any kind of legitimate meaning (Bah! Humbug!). This is one of the only JW teachings that I like. :-)
Thanks Midriff, but I would still like to know what makes celebrating a birthday wrong? Is it just because a book says so? And if so, why did the book say it? There has to be some underlying reason.
gasmonso
My guess is that it’s a form of social control, getting the believers to lessen their own perceived value in order to increase the perceived value of their god.
Who cares? She’s an idiot, brainwashed by idiots; and now because of that, she’s a poor idiot. Woopedeedoo, another poor person in America.
I’m one of Jehovah’s Witnesses and I’m actually going to agree with this statement: “If you can’t perform the duties at your job for whatever reason, including religion… then get the hell out. You have no right to a job in which you are unwilling to perform the required tasks.”
However, I also agree with some of the other commenters who wondered if it really was so critical that she take part. I mean, is a restaurant patron going to complain to the manager that only 4 people sang to him instead of 5? And I too am curious if the birthday celebrations are specifically listed in the job requirements, that’s a very key question. If they were, she should have discussed the situation during the application process (yes, that means that religion would have been a topic of the process, but if it’s the applicant who brings it up in order to clarify job responsibilities, then I don’t think the employer would have any legal risk).
Generally speaking, we know that the rest of the word (workplace, school, etc.) takes part in things that we don’t and we try and make those situations as painless as possible for all involved.
Most of the companies I’ve worked for have had at least some sort of Christmas activity (a dinner, or present exchange, or something of that nature). I always let them know well in advance that I appreciate the gesture but that I won’t be taking part. I also ask them to not try and alter those activities in some way just on my account to get me to take part. I’m not there to spoil everyone else’s Christmas celebration. I don’t complain that there are Christmas decorations all over the office, but just don’t expect me to decorate my desk too.
isn’t this a very similar example to pharmacists not handing out contraceptive morning-after pills because of their religion?
Very similar, only the pharmacist case is much worse because:
1) The effect on the customer is much worse. They don’t get the contraception they want versus avoiding being annoyed by singing waitstaff.
2) Filling scripts is the very essence of being a pharmacist, not an extra duty.
Okay, singing a song shouldn’t hurt anybody so i don’t understand why they don’t allow it, but if it’s important to her? just let her do something else! I don’t think anybody will care if she sang or not in the end effect(they might even be happier if she doesn’t!)
@Fizzer:
Just wanted to ask you if you mind doing a “JustAsk” session for us since JW is one of the more mystical believes that are being discussed here.
Agony: If by mystical you mean “More full of shit that all the other bat-shit crazy religions out there”, then I agree.
Tommy,
Then it’s not really similar at all. If she’s a waitress then I can’t imagine the that singing is really vital to her duties. Comparing this to the pharmacists thing is silly.
“There has to be some underlying reason.”
It celebrates the created not the creator. That would be my guess. Now if you’re looking for some sinister “social control” bullshit then no there doesn’t have to be an underlying “reason”. The stated reason is enough.
gasmonso Says:
“Thanks Midriff, but I would still like to know what makes celebrating a birthday wrong? Is it just because a book says so? And if so, why did the book say it? There has to be some underlying reason.”
I’m not quite sure how my previous post didn’t already answer your questions. The underlying reason is that “the custom of celebrating birthdays comes from ancient false religions.” My guess, not being a JW, is that celebrating a birthday or another similar holiday smacks of participating in a what the JW’s deem to be a false religion. Participating in other relgions is a big no-no for most monotheistic religions that I know of.
A lot of people are asking why it is important that she sings Happy Birthday. Unfortunately, the article did not say what position she held at the restaurant. I’m going to assume server, but if she was a greeter or bus staff, then ignore the following.
Part of being a good server is building trust and association with your guest. There is nothing more gratifying (and potentially lucrative) than having regular customers who ask to be sat in your section. Even if I were not a regular customer, if I went to a restaurant on my birthday, and everyone EXCEPT my server sang to me, I would notice, and find it odd. She would probably lose part of her tip. Her job is to make me feel comfortable and happy with my experience and it would be weird if she weren’t the one in front leading the singing. Just like it is weird when some random person brings you your check.
When servers act odd, of don’t make me comfortable or happy, it influences my decision on whether or not to return to the restaurant. Maybe I’m overreacting, but a server who is missing during the Birthday song could cause the restaurant to lose repeat business.
This is America. If you lose business, you’re gone.
““4. Birthdays: The only two birthday celebrations spoken of in the Bible were held by persons who did not worship Jehovah. (Genesis 40:20-22; Mark 6:21, 22, 24-27) The early Christians did not celebrate birthdays. “”
Erm ok, so the pharao and herod both had their birthdays. That makes it a bad thing??
Hitler watched TV and the early christians didn’t, that must make it evil. Come to think of it, both Mao and Hitler drove a car, that must be forbidden to. Am I missing something here?
on the point of getting fired when not doing your job, GOOD. If I don’t do my job, or worse do it badly, I deserve to get fired on the spot. Then again it’s a bit scary when waiters start singing happy birthday for you. (probably the cultural difference though)
Whether it is a vital part of her job or not, no matter how miniscule the task, she is a dipshit or just looking for a reason to sue, either way she should be kicked right outta there. This is exactly the reason I dispise organized religion. They make up the most ridiculous rules and people have to respect them. Screw that, if it is legal and reasonable (and this is reasonable in my opinion), if the boss tells you to do something you do it. That this gets more than 30 minutes in court is just sad.
Scott,
“Then it’s not really similar at all.”
If it’s advertised as part of her job, then it’s similar in concept. Employee won’t do something that’s part of the job due to religious beliefs.
It’s a vast difference in degree. Like I said, I can’t get worked up over the Happy Birthday issue. The pharmacist issue gets me mad.
“It celebrates the created not the creator … sinister “social control†bullshit”
Devaluing people to the point that they don’t even celebrate the day they came into this world is social control. Call it bullshit if you will.
Shouldn’t christians really be celebrating their conception days? (Mine is Valentine’s day. No, really, it is.)
Bah, my father spent about 5 years in the JWs after he went down with disease and could not be cured…
I soon discovered that in the JWs, appearance is of utmost importance:
They don’t celebrate those false holydays of christmas, they don’t need those to give gifts and love to their relatives and friends. GREAT!!! But they don’t just NOT celebrate it… you never see them giving ANY sort of whatever to whoever in december and the first half of january… why it might be interpreted as some sort of simili-christmas gift by some other member of the group!
And such, most their actions are more motivated by ‘what will the neighbors think of us?’ mentality than any real good reasons.
But still, like most religions, instead of starting from a sacred book and interpreting their way of life, they start with what they want to actualise and then find ways to justify it with the said book. See Open letter to Dr. Laura: she dislike homosexuals and uses Leviticus from the old testament to justify it. She does not respect the other laws in leviticus like animal sacrifices and slavery, only what she needs…
My own 2 cents
Oh! also about the primary subject;
Even if the birthday-signing wasn’t really needed of her, they couldn’t just give in to one person whims and then not for others.
I know after that my religion would have prohibited me from using the oil vats and serving stinky low-tiping idiots…
(oil vats for fries causes severe burns on the careless)
If I put aside that her reasoning is quite absurd (because I look no less strange to religious people), I can understand her. It is similar to an employer demanding that everyone – including me – prays every morning. Of course, if it was mentioned in the job description, I wouldn’t take the job, but I doubt that an employer would mention such a policy, because “Happy birthday” and similar traditions (like going to church) are per definition performed without thinking, so nobody would think of asking someone if it would disturb them.
To all you people arguing that she should have just sucked it up and sang the damn song, you realize that, essentially, you’re siding with Chotchkie’s in an argument about flair. :-D
“It is similar to an employer demanding that everyone – including me – prays every morning.”
Welcome to Chik-fil-A.
Tommy,
“If it’s advertised as part of her job, then it’s similar in concept. Employee won’t do something that’s part of the job due to religious beliefs.”
That’s a biiiig if. We don’t know that it was. If it was then of course you’re right as is the majority here.
“It’s a vast difference in degree. Like I said, I can’t get worked up over the Happy Birthday issue. The pharmacist issue gets me mad.”
I can understand that. Of course neither of us is personally affected by that issue so by the same logic that has been used to tell me that I can’t have an opinion on aboriton because I’m a male (that is unless I’m pro choice) then I suppose I can’t have an opnion on the morning after pill. ;-)
“Devaluing people to the point that they don’t even celebrate the day they came into this world is social control. Call it bullshit if you will.”
You’re welcome to your opinion and I don’t disagree that it’s a silly rule. I can just see why a religious person might make that choice and I respect it. I love the people in here who descend into name calling and immature behavior on religious issues. It’s difficult to understand why someone would go through any sort of self-deprecation or denial (fasting, scourging, abstinence) when you don’t share even a similar belief. Saying that you should “respect” that, doesn’t mean you have to agree with it, but calling someone a dipshit because you disagree with their stance on an issue just makes you look like an adolescent. Of course if someone’s religious or philosphical belief is harmful to themselves, others, or society at large you call them on it, but you should act like an adult (note to Tommy, this is not aimed at you).
If an employer asked me to do something that was legal and reasonable to them but against my religious belief then I would probably quit after doing what I was asked the one time (depending on the taboo in question) and giving appropriate notice. I wouldn’t sue for damages (and as far as I can tell she hasn’t ). And calling this a whim is actually pretty insulting too. Most people don’t follow the stricter guidelines of their faith on a “whim”.
“Shouldn’t christians really be celebrating their conception days? (Mine is Valentine’s day. No, really, it is.)”
The birthday is naturally easier to pin down, but then you’re just being a bit cheeky. ;-)
This is the list of demands by Balentine & EEOC
The EEOC wants “appropriate backpay with prejudgment interest†and other compensation for, among other things, “emotional pain and suffering, inconvenience, loss of enjoyment of life and humiliation.†Also, the EEOC’s attorneys want Razzoo’s to pay Balentine punitive damages “for its malicious and reckless conduct.â€
Tommy Says:
“‘It is similar to an employer demanding that everyone – including me – prays every morning.’
Welcome to Chik-fil-A.”
Heh…that’s fast food place where I was a shift manager. We never had anything like a daily prayer time. The only remotely religious thing we did was staying closed on Sundays, but that was only because it was mandated by Chick-Fil-A corporate (not that any of us minded having Sundays off).
We had church-y people, drug addicts, gays, and ex-convicts working for us…it was far from a church with chicken sandwiches atmosphere.
I was just thinking of this lawsuit:
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3190/is_44_36/ai_94131554
Chick-Fil-A settled. Don’t know the details. At least they didn’t make him sing Happy Birthday!
My only personal experience with the place was eating there once. It wasn’t very good.
Mmmm, I love chick-fil-a sammiches. And their nuggets. Best chicken stuff I have ever had. Maybe they prayed to god to make their chicken so good? Or, perhaps they sold their soul to the devil? Could just be good choices in spices and such…. nahhhh, it has to be mystical in nature somehow.
The secret is that they deep-fry in peanut oil. Try it yourself the next time you make something deep fried. Very tasty, but I have relatives who can’t eat there because of alergies, so watch out for that.
I am only allergic to work, so good to go there.
> The only two birthday celebrations spoken of in the Bible were held by persons who did not worship Jehovah.
Did the 3 wise men not come to give offerings at the birth of Jesus?
Dave
Skyclad Says:
“> The only two birthday celebrations spoken of in the Bible were held by persons who did not worship Jehovah.
Did the 3 wise men not come to give offerings at the birth of Jesus?”
They didn’t get to Jesus until he was two years old or so. I suppose you could view their gifts as birthday gifts, but I think they were more like “Hey we think you’re going to be a really important person so here’s some stuff” type gifts.
you sure about that?
Mathew 2:1 says:
“Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem . . .”
That was on the same day, BUT
Matthew 2:11
And when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down, and worshipped him . . .
So??? what’s up with that.
On a side note, Nobody ever said there were three men, only that they gave three gifts.
Take a look here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_Magi#The_birthplace
I grew up in a Southern Baptist church, and southern baptists are generally believers in the inerrancy of scripture, which, according to the last little bit of that section of the article, would explain why I was taught that it was a couple of years before the wise men came along.
They came east when Jesus was born. That doesn’t mean that they arrived on the day of his birth.
who really cares? live and let live.
The importance of this duty being stated in her job description cannot be underestimated. Simply put, if she was told that she may have to do these things and she didn’t want to, then she should have never taken the job. But if her not doing this duty of her job is a fire-able offense, then that duty should be stated as part of her job description.
In simpler terms, if you’re going to fire someone for not doing something, you better let them know that they will be expected to do this before hiring them. If you don’t tell them it’s part of their job before hiring them, you’re not really justified in firing them when they don’t do it.
“Ok Bob! We’ve got this Executive Assistant position available for you. All you’ll have to do is type what your boss tells you to, make telephone calls that they tell you to, and relay information for them. Can you do that?” Two weeks later… “Bob, I need you to drive to the country house and feed my dogs. You won’t? Your fired!”
Same shit, different pile.
So which religion freaks you out when you see schools in december with christmas decorations all over the place? Those teachers, principals, etc, are all bringing their religion to work….where it doesn’t belong (mix of church and state is against the law). Think about it.
Actually I’m fond of Christmas and the whole holiday spirit. It’s great to see everything decorated and lit up. I just don’t see it as a religious holiday in the US anymore. It’s so commercialized now that the whole Jesus birthday thing is tossed to the side.
gasmonso
Here’s an entire website dedicated to lawsuits filed by Jehovah’s Witnesses against employers who have violated their civil rights:
EMPLOYMENT ISSUES UNIQUE TO JEHOVAH’S WITNESS EMPLOYEES
http://jwemployees.bravehost.com/index.html
As one of Jehovah’s Witnesses, I work at my local Outback steakhouse, I told my manager when he hired me that I would not be participating in any birthday celebrations, singing, clapping, or whatever, when someone at my table is having a birthday, I just ring up their free ice cream and imform my manager, he rounds up all the girls, and out they go, singing to birthday person at my table. My boss knows that I’m an awesome server, always getting great feedback from happy customers, so who cares if i don’t sing ‘happy birthday’…
The next thing I wanted to mention is, the… why?
For those of you who don’t know, Jesus was NOT born on December 25th. In fact the bibe never even gives the day of Jesus’s birth, just of his death(Nisan 14th). Do you think Jesus celebrated his birthday? If he did don’t you think that the celebrations would be in the bible? or at least that day would have been recorded? the bible says ‘better is a day of death, than the day of ones being born’. why? because, a baby hasn’t had the chance to do anything yet. So we don’t do anything for Jesus’s b-day, the greatest man who ever lived, the very son of God. why would we want to celebrate the birth of an imperfect sinful, man, or even ourselves?
On the evening before he died, Jesus used unleavened bread and red wine as symbols of his loving human sacrifice. And he told his disciples: “Keep doing this in remembrance of me.” (Luke 22:19)So on Nisann 14th, We celebrate the fact that Jesus lived a self sacrificial life, a life for sinful humans. We, Jehovah’s Witnesses, follow his example of, self sacrifice, we do as he did, preach the word form door-to-door, and we don’t bring honor to ourselves. instead we give glory to God.
We witnessed Bob drinking a beer and it was good. We witnessed Bob eating leavened garlic bread and that was good. Bob rocks. Go Bob.
Bob needed a blood transfusion after his car accident but he’s OK now. Good thing he’s not one of those JW’s or he’d just be dead. Give glory to Bob. Or just give him a beer.
There’s not a Jehovah’s Witness alive today that witnessed a damn thing about jesus or god. Jehovah’s witnesses are a farce beyond all the other religious farces.
It’s 2010. Fuck your stupid jesus stories.
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