31–40 of 44 posts
It is not religious discrimination at all, and political discrimination is not illegal, so there isn't a legal issue with any of the scenarios you mentioned.
If someone's views on abortion are strongly dictated by their religious beliefs then I think it could be argued that it is religious discrimination. At the very least I could see it going to trial.
Unless it is illegal, you should not care. I think it is very unprofessional to deny service to someone because he has extreme opinions. You become just as worse as him; if not more.
It is not your right to dictate what society should do. If the government allowed them to organize the event, let them roll. Remember, if you are pro-choice, you should help get the opinion of everyone be heard.
Unless your product is so well-built and scalable that it could withstand the next 3 months without any dev support whatsoever, it wouldn't surprise me if firing half your workforce would be tantamount to shutting your doors over this. Plus, it's not like the remaining half will be inspired to work twice as hard, and it's not like "as long as I'm getting paid" devs are beating down the door to replace the ones threatening to leave at half the price. Recruiting talent is really hard, even when you're popular. Most of this board doesn't get or appreciate that.
Here's what I'd do. Unlike that guy who declined to make a wedding cake, I'd say, ok guys, but I make wedding cakes my own way, and I don't customize, so the top piece will be very traditional, and if that doesn't match with your special day, that's not my problem and you're free to take your business elsewhere.
Announce to your employees that you're going to do something similar for the pro-life group. Maybe in the sales calls, say you're going to watermark "right to choose" on printouts or something, and that's an area you won't customize. That oughtta shut up the malcontents and perhaps inspire them to work cheaper for you.
And then when the would-be customer gets all butthurt about your horrible sales skills, no one will care, because you're still willing to provide your service to them, just not the way they want, which is not newsworthy.
Here in America, I believe you can refuse them, as l long as they aren't a protected class. But should you?absolutely not. Even if they were the kkk. You are talking about Free Speech. And while that is between us and government, I believe Free Speech is the cornerstone to democracy, and each and everyone of us should strive to support Free Speech. Even if that means supporting speech we don't like. You may not agree…
> For example, there are several people on our team that are extremely pro-choice. We had a pro-life group sign up recently and these employees are threatening to quit if we accept their money. kernel.org and gnu.org will gladly give those pro-life people an OS, mozilla.org a browser. Free of charge, and all. microsoft.com will lavish software upon those pro-lifers, much of it for a fee. Safeway will sell a loaf of b…
Here in America, I believe you can refuse them, as l long as they aren't a protected class. But should you?absolutely not. Even if they were the kkk. You are talking about Free Speech. And while that is between us and government, I believe Free Speech is the cornerstone to democracy, and each and everyone of us should strive to support Free Speech. Even if that means supporting speech we don't like. You may not agree…
> For example, there are several people on our team that are extremely pro-choice. We had a pro-life group sign up recently and these employees are threatening to quit if we accept their money. kernel.org and gnu.org will gladly give those pro-life people an OS, mozilla.org a browser. Free of charge, and all. microsoft.com will lavish software upon those pro-lifers, much of it for a fee. Safeway will sell a loaf of b…
> For example, there are several people on our team that are extremely pro-choice. We had a pro-life group sign up recently and these employees are threatening to quit if we accept their money. kernel.org and gnu.org will gladly give those pro-life people an OS, mozilla.org a browser. Free of charge, and all. microsoft.com will lavish software upon those pro-lifers, much of it for a fee. Safeway will sell a loaf of b…
But if it's the bulk of the team, or it's key team members, then being noisy about something --- an ethical boundary, a workplace demand, whatever --- it isn't "primadonnery". It's the marketplace at work. In our industry, workers often have a lot more power than they understand, let alone wield. Getting angry about it won't change that.
There are all sorts of organizations we would refuse to do business at our firm. I can't see how it's any different in this scenario.
So, the assessment you need to make is:
a. How important to your company is the bloc of employees with this client conflict?
b. How much of a dealbreaker to that bloc is the conflict?
c. How much of a dealbreaker to your company is the other side of the conflict?
Pro-choice/pro-life isn't my particular red line (I was raised and still sort of consider myself Catholic, though I'm not pro-life --- but there are certainly pro-life organizations I'd refuse to work with). But there are other red lines, and they do come up, and your principles are usually more important than your customer pipeline, and it's usually just not a big deal to say "no" to people.
Ask your lawyer --- not a message board! --- about the legality of refusing to work with pro-life advocacy organizations, but I'd happily bet money that you're just fine on this. The bigger issue is how you want to handle your relationship with your team.
You might come up with a compromise, if you don't want to publicly take a stand that will attract attention that could harm the company (and that is a possibility); you could, for instance, make a countervailing donation (at some multiple of revenue) to NARAL.