Warsaw, May 29, 2020
Photo: im-g.pl
The Prosecutor’s Office in Warsaw has accused the HR manager of a local IKEA of violating a Christian employee’s rights on religious grounds.
The employee was fired for refusing to participate in an event in support of the LGBT community and for posting Bible quotes on the corporate website. The manager faces a fine or up to two years in prison, reports Gazeta.pl.
The incident occurred in 2019 when the company announced the “Day of Solidary with the Defenseless from the LGBT Community,” but one employee refused on religious grounds, instead asking for the day off. An order then appeared on the company website that all employees must participate, to which the employee responded by posting two quotes from Holy Scripture: Woe to that man through whom temptation comes (Mt. 18:7), and If a man lies with a male as he lies with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination. They shall surely be put to death. Their blood shall be upon them (Lev. 20:13).
The employee was then fired for a “violation of the rules of social interaction” and a “loss of confidence in the employee.”
The Ordo Luris institute for legal culture development then filed a lawsuit on the employee’s behalf. The investigation lasted almost a year, with the Prosecutor’s Office concluding that the HR manager violated the articles of the constitution guaranteeing freedom of religion and speech. The firing was the result of the “arbitrary assessments and biases of the employer,” the Office concluded.
“The employee’s entry with quotes from the Bible in quotation marks was not an attack on a particular person among colleagues, but a response to a previous action by the employer,” the Prosecutor’s Office explained.
IKEA issued a response simply acknowledging that the manager had been charged and stressing that they “will provide all assistance and support to our employees.”
Last May, Polish police detained a woman for blasphemously depicting the famous Black Madonna Icon of the Theotokos with LGBT rainbow-colored halos for Christ and His Most Pure Mother.
