(LifeSiteNews) — A court has awarded $180,000 to ex-employees fired for refusing to wear aprons they thought promoted the LGBT agenda.
Brenda Lawson and Trudy Rickerd, who both worked at a Kroger grocery store in Conway, Arkansas, won a lawsuit at the end of October, concluding a 2-year religious discrimination case. The court ruled that an attempt to force them to wear uniforms that they believed promoted LGBT lifestyles violated the women’s civil rights. The lawsuit was filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) on behalf of the employees.
“The parties decided to resolve the case with a consent decree to avoid additional costs and uncertainties of future litigation,” the EEOC wrote in an October 27 press release. “As part of the settlement, Kroger Limited Partnership I has agreed to create a religious accommodation policy and provide enhanced religious discrimination training to store management.”
The statement explains that Lawson and Rickerd were “disciplined and ultimately fired” after “refusing to wear an apron with the company’s ‘Our Promise’ symbol because they believed it represented support for the LGBTQ+ community.”
The damages to be paid by the company are a fulfilment of the suit’s efforts to obtain “monetary relief in the form of back pay and compensatory damages” for the former employees.
The lawsuit was filed following an attempt to “reach a voluntary pre-litigation settlement.” According to another press release from September 2020, the store had “implemented a new dress code, which included an apron depicting a rainbow-colored heart emblem on the bib of the apron.”
“The women believed the emblem endorsed LGBTQ values and that wearing it would violate their religious beliefs,” the EEOC stated. “One woman offered to wear the apron with the emblem covered and the other offered to wear a different apron without the emblem, but the company made no attempt to accommodate their requests.”
Lawson and Rickerd had worked for the company for 8 and 13 years, respectively, and were fired within days of each other in 2019. EEOC’s lawsuit argued that Kroger had violated the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination based on religious beliefs.
READ: Daycare center fired employee for refusing to read LGBT propaganda to toddlers: lawsuit
A large childcare chain in the United States just fired a faithful Christian caretaker for refusing to read LGBT propaganda to children.
As reported on LifeSiteNews, Bright Horizons Children’s Center in California terminated the contract of Nelli Parisenkova for not reading LGBT-themed books to children as young as 1 year-old.
Parisenkova, a devout Christian who worked for the company for four years, requested to not read the books because they violated her deeply held religious beliefs.
Instead of tolerating Nelli’s Christian faith, Bright Horizons demanded she 'celebrate diversity' or leave. After refusing to comply with this unjust ultimatum, Parisenkova’s boss expelled her from the building, which forced her to walk 20 minutes in 96-degree heat to the bus stop where she had to wait another 45 minutes.
Parisenkova is now suing Bright Horizons Children’s Center for violating her religious freedom, and she needs your help to raise public awareness about this assault on her human rights.
Sign this petition today to tell Nelli Parisenkova that you stand with her and her Christian faith against the LGBT agenda being pushed by Bright Horizon’s Children’s Center.
Bright Horizons thinks it can bully devout Christians like Nelli into submitting to their leftist ideology. Do not let them get away with it! We all must take a stand to ensure these attacks on our shared Christian faith come to an end. Here are the plain and simple facts:
- No child should be brainwashed to believe that marriage is between two men or two women.
- No child should be told that boys can become girls, or that girls can become boys.
- No child should be indoctrinated with the erroneous belief there are more than two genders, or that people can choose their gender identity.
This is not education. This is propaganda.
Nelli Parisenkova was RIGHT to protect children from LGBT indoctrination and she was RIGHT to invoke her Christian faith in doing so.
SIGN THIS PETITION NOW to tell her she is not alone in this fight!
MORE INFORMATION:
Daycare center fired employee for refusing to read LGBT propaganda to toddlers: lawsuit
Christian woman fired for resisting LGBT agenda takes on Corporate America: Monday, October 24
Around the same time, the EEOC also sued the Frito-Lay company for religious discrimination against a man who was fired for not reporting to work on Saturdays, despite informing his employer that working on those days violated his beliefs as a Seventh-day Adventist.
Although the organization denied that the colorful heart on employee aprons was a Pride rainbow, Kroger has proudly announced that the company was named “one of the best places to work for LGBTQ equality” for three consecutive years, beginning in 2019. A press release from March 2019 states that The Kroger Co. “earned a perfect score on the 2019 Corporate Equality Index, the Human Rights Campaign Foundation’s national benchmarking tool for corporate policies and practices supporting lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer employees.”
The company released similar statements in 2020 and 2021 after receiving the same recognition. Some of the “inclusion highlights” are offering “same-sex partner benefits and transgender-inclusive health care” as well as the company partnering with the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce “to create and enhance relationships with LGBTQ suppliers.”
READ: Grocery chain Kroger punishes unvaccinated employees with higher insurance costs, less paid-time off
Kroger changed its rules to allow same sex couples to qualify for joint health plans after an employee filed an employment discrimination suit.
The Cincinnati Enquirer also reported that, beginning in 2016, eligible employees and their dependents could receive up to $100,000 to cover “gender affirming” medical “care,” including drugs and surgeries.