About a year and a half ago, I put an article online called Workplace Discrimination, in which I talked about a company called Christian Jobs Online. If you haven't read this article, please take a moment to do so. (I'll wait for you.)
Okay, welcome back.
Now that you've read the article (and if you haven't, what follows will make little sense to you), you can read the email I received recently:
In reference to your article:http://www.bee.net/cardigan/attic/040399.htm
My name is Jose Gomez, CEO of 3nity, Inc., an Internet Developer who has recently partnered with Christian Jobs Online to relaunch their services known as ChristianJobs.Com.
I read through your article and have prepared a response. I sincerely hope that it will help explain the focus of ChristianJobs.Com further. I believe you have misunderstood our intent.
I am sure that most people would like to find employment that is suited to their skills, professionalism, mindset, lifestyle, and culture. This would obviously be the very MOST someone would want out of a job. ChristianJobs.Com is a service designed to help Christians find employment that will suit their culture. It is for those who would like to be assured that their future employers will not degrade their beliefs, and in fact do hold policies that compliment these convictions.
In regards to discriminatory practices on the employers' side, I can assure you that there is no intent in promoting such practices on our site. We are simply attempting to bring employers and job seekers that hold the same convictions together in hopes that they may find reasonable opportunities for a great work environment.
I hope that you can understand our vision, and continue to pray for the love of God to one day make itself evident to you.
God bless,
Jose Gomez
CEO/President
ChristianJobs.Com
Naturally, I felt a reply was in order, and this is how it read:
Dear Mr. Gomez:Thank you for your recent communication regarding my article about Christian Jobs Online. I appreciate you taking the time from your busy day to comment, and I'm sure you'll appreciate my desire to respond.
I have not, however, misunderstood your intent whatsoever. In fact, I think your intent, as you described, is admirable. It was exactly this intent that was in mind when our legislators wrote laws against workplace discrimination on the basis of religion. The problem here is not my misunderstanding of your intent (or even a fault with your intent), but that either you have failed to see what the practical result of ChristianJobs.Com's efforts will be, or else you do not care.
And the result, no matter your intent, will be discrimination of one sort or another.
You stated that ChristianJobs.Com is geared toward "those who would like to be assured that their future employers will not degrade their beliefs." Mr. Gomez, no job seeker should worry about his/her future employer degrading their beliefs. In America, we don't approve of that sort of thing, which is why we enacted the above-mentioned anti-discrimination laws. In other words, you're trying to assure your clientele of something in which they should need no assurance.
Also, you stressed that "there is no intent in promoting such [discriminatory] practices." But can you not see that they are a virtual certainty? Let's say you're a Christian employer (which, obviously, you are). And let's say you hire two new employees. One was hired through ChristianJobs.Com; the other simply mailed a resume in and was interviewed. Since questions about religion are forbidden in an interview process, you have no idea what the second hire's beliefs are. You do know, though, that the first hire, through ChristianJobs.Com, is a Christian. Since you are a Christian, and since faith is obviously quite important to you, it will be very difficult for you not to treat the first hire preferentially.
If you claim that this will not happen, then either one of two things is true. Either you're a liar, or your services are utterly unnecessary. For if you would treat the second hire no differently than the first, what's the point of ChristianJobs.Com at all?
To reiterate: No employer in this country should treat an employee differently (for better or worse) because of his/her religion. They are forbidden by law to do so. And because of this, no job seeker in this country should expect to be treated differently by an employer because of his/her religion (again, for better or worse). A service like yours, rather than assuring that these sensible expectations are met, pushes in the other direction, actually making preferential treatment of Christians in the workplace more likely. Also, as mentioned in my original article, it can easily cause any non-Christian to have serious thoughts against applying at any company listed at ChristianJobs.Com, out of a fear of being treated less than equally because of not being a Christian. I, for example, would never consider applying with any of the companies for exactly this reason. Prejudice against atheists is prevalent in our society, and I must naturally assume that any company who lists with ChristianJobs.Com is not going to be religiously neutral toward me.
In short, whether or not this is your intent, ChristianJobs.Com encourages religious discrimination, rather than discouraging it.
I sincerely hope you will think seriously about these points, and see that your company's services are yet another example of religion being a divisive issue rather than a unifying one.
Mr. Gomez and I exchanged a handful of emails over the ensuing days. For the most part, neither of us said anything new, but rehashed what was said in the above letters. I provided additional examples of how I felt the company's policy invited discrimination of one form or another. And he assured me that the company was in compliance with all existing anti-discrimination laws.
At one point, he pretty much accused me of not being against what the company does, but against the fact that it is ChristianJobs.Com. He asserted that I would probably not be so annoyed if it were AtheistJobs.Com. I assured him that if there were such an organization as AtheistJobs.Com, then I would expect all companies listed to have something to do with atheism. He never mentioned this again.
All in all, our exchanges were polite, though not terribly productive. In the end, we agreed to disagree, though he did promise to look at my arguments again and try to see my points. I asked him to please try to do so from a non-Christian perspective.
I don't expect any change to come from this. But it was at least encouraging that he took the time to contact me in the first place, and to continue correspondence in a civil and prompt manner. That's certainly more than I've received from many other companies I've contacted over the years.
