A longtime metalworks employee is suing his former employer, Pittsburgh-based Arconic, for religious discrimination after he was fired for expressing on an anonymous company survey his religious-based objection to the use of the rainbow to represent sexual identity.
Specifically, the former employee, Daniel Snyder, who is now 63, was offended by Arconic’s choice, in his view, to coopt the rainbow, a religious symbol from the Old Testament, to advocate for same-sex marriage and gender ideology.
After 10 years of service, Snyder was terminated as an employee in June 2021 from his lead operator position at Arconic’s lightweight metal engineering and manufacturing facility in Riverdale, Iowa, known as the Davenport Works.
Snyder is seeking compensatory and punitive damages against Arconic for religious discrimination and retaliation because of his religion under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Iowa Civil Rights Act.
Arconic fired Snyder, a devout Christian, based on a single religious comment he made in responding to an anonymous company survey. In his comment, Snyder objected to the company’s use of the rainbow to promote “Gay Pride Month,” stating briefly that using the rainbow this way was “an abomination to God,” because the rainbow “is not meant to be a sign for sexual gender.”
Snyder told Arconic officials his statement was based on his deeply held religious belief that the Bible shows the rainbow is meant to be a sign of the covenant between God and man, not about gender ideology.
According to “The A to Z Guide to Bible Signs and Symbols: Understanding Their Meaning and Significance,” by Neil Wilson and Nancy Ryken Taylor, as referenced in Genesis 9:11-17, “the rainbow is the primary biblical symbol most people can identify. Children in Sunday school learn early on about Noah’s ark and the rainbow that accompanies God’s promise to never again destroy the whole earth by flood.”
Despite this, the company informed Snyder that his comment had been posted on the company “intranet”—which hadn’t been his intention—and that it had offended a fellow employee. Snyder was summarily suspended and then terminated, supposedly for violating Arconic’s “diversity policy.”
Snyder says Arconic didn’t try to reasonably accommodate him, even though his statement was obviously religious, and despite informing Arconic that he wouldn’t attempt to respond to any future request for his opinions.
When Snyder advised company officials that he made his statement based on his sincerely held Christian beliefs, a panel of Arconic representatives responded “with derisive laughter,” treating Snyder as if he were a bigot, according to the legal complaint.
Arconic’s so-called diversity policy is a sham because it “actually punishes diversity of opinion, allowing only one opinion—the company’s approved narrative on morally freighted issues—while treating any employee’s religious opinion or objection to the contrary, even if intended to be anonymous and expressed in a single instance, as grounds for immediate termination with no accommodation whatsoever,” the complaint states.
In reality, the diversity policy is a policy of intolerance “designed to expel from Arconic’s workforce anyone who dissents for religious reasons from its corporate moral views, without the opportunity for reasonable accommodation,” it states.
Martin A. Cannon, senior trial counsel for the Thomas More Society, said the case is “fairly striking, actually, on the facts.”
Arconic had previously accommodated Snyder, for example, by agreeing not to schedule him to work on Sundays, Cannon told The Epoch Times in an interview.
But after he expressed his views on the use of the rainbow as a symbol, “the next time he clocks in, they give him the bum’s rush, and he’s suspended, and then after a while, they just terminated him.”
Arconic’s reaction to Snyder’s expressed opinion “violates Title VII and violates the comparable Iowa statute and violates common sense, probably violates contract law,” Cannon said.
“To this day, we don’t know who the supposedly offended person was—he hasn’t had a chance to explain himself to that person—and frankly, not that it would even be necessary. You don’t fire a guy because he expresses a religious belief. Period. He didn’t disrupt the workplace or cause anybody any harm.”
Arconic’s diversity policy is “basically zero tolerance for intimidation and harassment, but obviously, that only goes one way,” he said.
Arconic officials didn’t respond by press time to a request by The Epoch Times for comment.
