Synagogue worker: I was Fired for Having Sex Before Marriage
The same thing has happened to women who work for or at Christian places of employment; I have blogged about it before (see links about that, at the bottom of this post, under “Related Posts”).
Notice that only women are penalized in this scheme, since one cannot tell just from looking at a guy if he’s fathered any children.
I also find this strange and very discriminatory – there are so many people having sex outside of marriage these days (both men and women), what do such organizations plan on doing, trying to fire every woman who has pre-marital sex?
And why not try harder to determine if THE MEN are pre-marital boinking, and fire some of them, too?
They cannot pull this off, they cannot get every last person who pre-marital boinks fired from every company in America, so they single out the one or two women who work for them in particular.
Meanwhile, there are bazillions of fornicating women employed all over the nation and still employed as I type this.
Even Christian women fornicate, and some of them do so via oral sex or other “Non-Penis in the Vagina” sexual activity. You cannot tell from looking at those women they are getting or receiving oral sex, or participating in other types of sex acts, so it seems even one more step removed to “pick on” single women who are pregnant, because their sex act (which results in pregnancy) is more visually obvious.
Would such people prefer women like one in this story get an abortion, to hide the fact they had pre-marital sex?
Many of these conservative religious groups complain out that ying yang that women are having abortions in droves, so rather than punish women who are having conceptions out of wedlock, shouldn’t they be expressing some amount of gratitude that such women are opting to have a kid, rather than abort it?
I do still believe that both Old and New Testaments forbid women AND MEN from having sex prior to marriage, but I don’t know about religious groups doing things like firing people (and it’s almost always women) who do have sex prior to marriage.
How is this woman supposed to pay for doctor’s visits, baby formula, diapers and other stuff her new baby will need, if they fire her? One of these articles says after being fired, she won’t have medical coverage.
If this religious group cares about babies and “the family” (Gawd knows evangelical Christians never shut up professing to care about both, and no, I’m not opposed to “the family” only the obsession with it that my fellow conservatives have), shouldn’t they keep her on at her job, so she can buy diapers and stuff for the new kid?
(Link): Synagogue Accused of Firing Woman for Being Pregnant at Her Wedding
Congregation Shearith Israel, a Manhattan synagogue known as the first Jewish congregation in the U.S., allegedly fired an employee because she was 19 weeks pregnant at the time of her marriage, according to a federal lawsuit filed Tuesday.
The employee, Alana Shultz, alleged in the lawsuit that she was fired from her job as a program director at the Upper West Side synagogue once officials learned that she was pregnant at the time of her marriage in June. She was about 23 weeks pregnant when she was fired in July, according to the complaint.
…After Ms. Shultz hired a lawyer, synagogue officials “attempted to ‘un-fire’ her,” according to the complaint. They sent her a letter that allegedly reinstated her, the complaint said.
“Now that they’ve rescinded the termination, we know the whole basis, which is the restructuring, which is a pretext, is false,” Mr. Wigdor said.
Ms. Shultz declined to be rehired.
(Link): Synagogue worker: I was fired for having sex before marriage
September 22, 2015 | 1:34pm
A renowned Upper West Side synagogue fired a worker after learning she had had sex before marriage, a new lawsuit charges.
Alana Shultz — a longtime program director for Congregation Shearith Israel, the oldest synagogue in the US — failed to “adhere to their religious morals” by getting married when she was already about five months pregnant, her suit says.
Before leaving on her honeymoon, Shultz, 36, confided to her supervisor, Barbara Reiss, that she was 19 weeks pregnant, according to the Manhattan federal court suit, which was filed Tuesday.
Reiss heartily congratulated her, Shultz’s suit says.
But by the time Shultz returned from her honeymoon July 21, she had become a pariah among the congregation, which was established in 1654, her suit says.
Shultz was hauled into Rabbi Meir Soloveichik’s office, where he and Reiss gave her the cold shoulder, documents state.
The rabbi wouldn’t even acknowledge her presence, the papers say.
… Reiss then told Shultz that her position at the synagogue at 8 W. 70th St., which she had held since 2004, was being eliminated and that her last day would be Aug. 15, according to the lawsuit.
Shultz, who has a master’s degree in Jewish studies, told her higher-ups it would be “extremely” difficult for her to get a new job because of her pregnancy, but her words were met with a cold silence, the suit claims.
Reiss then offered Shultz a severance package of six weeks of pay with no medical benefits in return for her assurance that she wouldn’t take legal action against the congregation, the suit says.
The severance agreement also specified that Shultz would need to train her replacement — even though she had been told that her position was eliminated, according to the suit.
…Shultz hired a lawyer, and the synagogue tried to rehire her in a “thinly-veiled attempt to mitigate defendant’s exposure for their blatant discriminatory and unlawful conduct,” the suit says.Instead, she filed suit, demanding compensation for monetary damages and emotional distress.
——————————-
Related Posts:
(Link): Single, pregnant mother fired from church for not being married
(Link): Church Forced Out Woman Who Complained Pastor Regularly Sexually Harassed Her
(Link): Church Forced Out Woman Who Complained Pastor Regularly Sexually Harassed Her
(Link): Women in Sao Paulo Must Provide Proof of Virginity to Be Hired as Teachers
(Link): Discrimination Against Singles in Spain – and Ageism
Christian Pundit 