The worker is now suing his former employer claiming the termination violated his civil rights
A terminated employee from Iowa filed a lawsuit against his employer after they fired him for his comments on the company's support for Gay Pride Month. The employee, who worked for the company for almost a decade, was terminated after he called the rainbow flag an "abomination" in the company's bulletin board.
"It's an abomination to God. Rainbow is not meant to be displayed as a sign for sexual gender," he wrote.
In his defence, he claimed that he believed the link he had received in his email was an anonymous "engagement survey" from the company's president. Upon clicking the link, it redirected him to a webpage that sought his feedback on the idea of "Gay Pride Month."
His comment offended at least one of his colleagues, according to a report from the Longview News Journal, but the employee claimed his remarks were only based on his Christian beliefs. He also alleged that his explanation was met with laughter from the company's employees.
He was later suspended for violating the company's diversity policy, before eventually getting fired because of it.
Read more: How to support LGBTQ rights at work
However, the employee then filed a lawsuit - represented by the conservative Christian organisation Thomas More Society - and claimed that his termination violated the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
According to his lawsuit, the employee "sincerely believes" that it is "sacrilegious to use the rainbow to promote relationships and ideologies that violate God's law," the news journal quoted.
He also alleged that the company's diversity policy "punishes diversity of opinion, allowing only one opinion" and treating others as "grounds for immediate termination with no accommodation whatsoever."
He then tagged his former employer's policy as an "intolerance policy" that was designed to expel any employee who "dissents for religious reasons from its corporate moral views."
The terminated employee's company has yet to issue a statement on the matter. The case comes just days ahead of Pride Month in June, where a lot of workplaces usually use the chance to show their support to the LGBTQ+ community, including their employees who are a part of it. Curtis Sparrer, a principal at Bospar, previously spoke with HRD and stressed that employers need to make their support for the community "explicit."
"Employers need to make their support of their LGBTQ co-workers explicit, from written employee policies to hosting LGBTQ employee meet-ups and networking events," Sparrer said. "I would say the biggest danger to playing lip service to diversity is not being taken seriously in anything else you do. People see a company’s commitment to diversity as a litmus test to a company’s ethics and their approach to doing business."
