Man suing former employer for requiring his fingerprints

[denise]

http://www.columbiamissourian.com/news/ ... p?ID=19308

Missourian NewsApril 9, 2006 Man suing former employer for requiring his fingerprints
Members of the man’s church say prints are a ‘mark of the beast.’
By SARAH BLASKOVICH

A “born again Christian” from Independence recently filed suit against his former employer for violating his religious beliefs. Donny Attaway was fired last year when he refused to use his fingerprint to clock in and out of his job as a manager for QuikTrip.

Although Attaway has declined to discuss his lawsuit, some members of his church, New Covenant Faith Center in Independence, believe that fingerprinting could be a “mark of the beast,” a symbol from the book of Revelation. Mentioned seven times, it warns Christians of the coming of the Antichrist. The 13th chapter of Revelation in particular prohibits God’s followers from being branded on their right hand or forehead. Some Christians have equated these marks with biometric fingerprinting and computer chip technology.

“I believe that it’s going to lead to something that’s wrong,” said New Covenant member Jessie Peterson. “You have to make a decision to stop, and Donny did.”

New Testament scholar David Barr said this aversion to fingerprinting is not a commonly held belief among most evangelical Christians, however.

“The mark of the beast is a number, 666, and it refers to the universal barcode,” said Barr, a professor at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio. “There are dozens of things that people today have fastened onto this mark of the beast, but I’ve never heard of fingerprinting.”

It is more common, Barr said, for Christians to oppose the use of Social Security numbers as a means of identification. In Attaway’s case, he was permitted to use his Social Security number for several months, which he preferred, but was then asked to switch to fingerprinting. Attaway refused and was fired in February 2005.

“Usually, Christians understand the mark of the beast as being against using their Social Security code. This is kind of a different twist on it,” said Gary McCaleb, one of Attaway’s attorneys at the Alliance Defense Fund.

“How you parse it out in terms of theology, I don’t know. But it’s all about his rights under the First Amendment,” McCaleb said.

Barr said the Revelation chapter that objects to marks on the right hand or forehead does not refer to newfound types of technology.

Many Biblical scholars understand the mark of the beast on the right hand as symbolic of corrupt business practices, such as the practice of rubbing coins together. The mark of the beast on the forehead is not a physical symbol but begs Christians to keep evil out of their emotions and their intentions.

Alliance Defense Fund argues that his aversion to fingerprinting is a sincerely held religious belief. His rights are protected under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, McCaleb said. Employers are required by the law to accommodate sincerely held religious beliefs as long as they don’t create an excessive burden.

Attaway, a QuikTrip manager for seven years, claimed that he should be able to continue to use his Social Security code at work, just like QuikTrip employees with broken fingers or other problems that prevent fingerprinting.

“In this case, the surprising thing is that QuikTrip simply made no effort to accommodate him at all,” McCaleb said. “They fired the guy, and that’s just plain wrong under Title VII.”

Mike Thornbrugh, a QuikTrip spokesman, declined to comment on the case.

In general, Title VII lawsuits are relatively rare, said MU law professor Carl Esbeck. “Usually a reasonable accommodation for a person with sincerely held religious beliefs is cheap and easy,” he said, and most lawsuits like this one end before they’re taken to court.

McCaleb said that the Alliance Defense Fund has only been active in about half a dozen cases involving the mark of the beast, usually defending the plaintiff’s right not to use a Social Security code.

Since Attaway’s termination more than a year ago, he has worked as a self-employed landscaping contractor. His attorneys are in the process of serving the court documents to QuikTrip.

“Gears of justice are not known to grind with alacrity in most instances,” McCaleb said. He expects for the case to take at least six months before a decision is made.

[BeTheMoon]

It will be interesting to see what precedent is established from this. I remember a case in florida where a muslim gal wanted her drivers license with her burka on, but I never found out the outcome of that. Anyone know?

Not that Christians and muslims are alike, but to the world, we're just a bunch or religious folk.