Ken Ham files lawsuit against Kentucky

[orogenicman]

That is the strangest education and experience requirement I've ever seen for a secular job position.

[Heywood]

Computer technician is just a title. You need to look at the actual job description.

So, in response to this silly advice, I went and looked up the opening. Here are the job responsibilities:

Summary
New Programmer

Responsibilities
The Solutions Developer is responsible for developing and maintaining web-based, service-based, and client-based software solutions, which includes the following responsibilities:
Gather, record, prioritize, and schedule solution related requests, features and tasks.
Design, prototype, build, document, test, and support software and reporting solutions.
Manage internal customer relationships by communicating the receiving of, the status of, and the satisfactory completion of all tasks proactively with stakeholders.
Collaborate and support a team at every point of the software development lifecycle.
Other duties as assigned

There's nothing there that indicates a religious mission orientation to the position. But here's the next bit in the announcement:

Education and Experience
A proven firmness in one’s walk with Christ, evident through a personal life that is above reproach, with an “ambition to lead a quiet life and attend to your own business and work with your hands” (1 Thessalonians 4:11); that is, the heart of a servant that works diligently and seeks to defer praise to God.
Bachelors’ degree or equivalent work experience in computer science or information systems disciplines.
Strong personal management, meaning strong time management skills and extremely well organized.
Strong professional, concise and courteous communication skills, able to communicate technical details and concepts to a broad range of technical and non-technical staff with patience, kindness and grace.
Strong experience with the following languages: HTML5 (including CSS and JavaScript), TSQL, and C#.
Must have experience with Adaptive/Responsive Design, MVC, WCF and RESTful services, and N-Tier architecture development.
Support the technical support staff in advanced trouble-shooting needs, interacting directly with end users.
Maintain effective and consistent communication with management and end users regarding service requests and projects, listening and acting upon concerns, needs, and other feedback.
Proactively address user issues and coordinate resolution of service requests and projects with other groups within IT and throughout the ministry.
Thrives in a high-pace environment.

You'll note that the very first listing is something that is irrelevant to programming computers, and is a baldly religious requirement.

So I went and looked at the other openings. Only one of them has a religious function (Latin American Ministry Co-ordinator). One other position has a marketing angle, which may require the ability to sell the myth, and that means knowing it. The others are in distribution, security, and IT, and have no duties related to ministry or religious education; yet they all have religious requirements.

So yeah, the requirement to have the computer programmer, or the rent-a-cop, or the mail clerk sign statements of faith in order to work there doesn't seem to be necessary, and on the face appears to violate state law.

This job description is good evidence......for the Common Wealth.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Yeah, like I said earlier, I can see some of the positions being exempt from Title VII, but janitors, programmers, ticket-takers ... sounds like hard sledding for Ham with jobs like the above.

[robvalue]

Punctuality essential.
Must not be a darky or a bender.
Needs good IT skills.

[Dystopia]

I may be a little leftist on this but I think employers, owners and managers shouldn't be able to discriminate based on irrelevant factors for the job. Simply put, the fact someone is an atheist and someone is a Christian is a verifiable difference, but it is a meaningless difference to execute the job correctly. I'm talking about the traditional western job when the worker must do an activity and as a benefit receives retribution. Discriminating people once or twice seems harmless but can lead to the creation and segregation of certain groups of people, statistically raising unemployment disproportionally

If it's activities associated specifically with a religious institution like the Church, I can understand the discrimination, or if it's an association (non-profit) for only certain groups of people (i.e. A Christian can't join an atheist club, duh!)

On a side-note, I think no one really wants to work in Ken Ham's Ark - I mean, what the actual fuck? I've only heard him speaking for 5 minutes and I've already noticed he's the kind of person who doesn't need refutation, he fucks everything up alone. "As a Christian, I believe the bible is the word of God, and God is right bla bla bla"

[Tonus]

A proven firmness in one’s walk with Christ, evident through a personal life that is above reproach, with an “ambition to lead a quiet life and attend to your own business and work with your hands” (1 Thessalonians 4:11); that is, the heart of a servant that works diligently and seeks to defer praise to God.

Wouldn't the part in bold necessarily exclude any self-professed Christian?

[SteelCurtain]

What chuffs me more than anything is the widely inflated attendance predictions. Ham did his own "study" in which he predicted that the in the first year, the park would produce 1.6 million visitors to the park, steadying out at 1.2 - 2 million visitors annually. When the state of KY contracted Hunden Strategic Partners (a Chicago based firm) to do an independent study, they found that even if AiG stuck to its "secular theme park" model, the first year would draw about 500,000 visitors, rise to about 600,000 in year three, but then steady out at 400,000 visitors. That's 20-33% of what Ham posited to the state in his application. If the "Ark Encounter" ends up being a religious attraction (and let's face it, it is...), then it would generate about 325,000 visitors its first year, rise to about 425,000 in its third year and slow to 275,000 by its seventh year. So that's 13-23% of what Ham's application said.

Just more proof that Ham's reality is whatever he wants it to be.

http://www.courier-journal.com/story/new.../22104537/

[Esquilax]

First of all, the legal document asserts that AiG's rights have been compromised, but I don't recall anybody ever having the right to large state funded tax breaks, and none of their actual rights are being infringed in any way.

Secondly, it asserts later on that the technician job they were discriminating over was an AiG position, and this is a lie: the job ad initially clearly said it was for the Ark Encounter. Moreover, hiring through one company to do work for another is exactly the kind of shady skirting of the law that got AiG denied in the first place; admitting to it doesn't make it better, especially in such a context where the shady stuff only started happening to cover for the blatantly illegal stuff that they are now claiming they always thought was totally legal.

Also, what is this constant refrain that their first amendment rights to free speech are being impinged upon? How exactly are they being prevented from speaking by not getting a tax break?

[Dystopia]

That's what you call a whiny legal maneuver, they clearly know no rights are being limited but they still need attention. It happens all the time

[Heywood]

What chuffs me more than anything is the widely inflated attendance predictions. Ham did his own "study" in which he predicted that the in the first year, the park would produce 1.6 million visitors to the park, steadying out at 1.2 - 2 million visitors annually. When the state of KY contracted Hunden Strategic Partners (a Chicago based firm) to do an independent study, they found that even if AiG stuck to its "secular theme park" model, the first year would draw about 500,000 visitors, rise to about 600,000 in year three, but then steady out at 400,000 visitors. That's 20-33% of what Ham posited to the state in his application. If the "Ark Encounter" ends up being a religious attraction (and let's face it, it is...), then it would generate about 325,000 visitors its first year, rise to about 425,000 in its third year and slow to 275,000 by its seventh year. So that's 13-23% of what Ham's application said.

Just more proof that Ham's reality is whatever he wants it to be.

http://www.courier-journal.com/story/new.../22104537/

If Ham is inflating the numbers so what? The non inflated numbers still satisfy the requirements of the incentive program.