Written by Don Byrd
The Salvation Army has agreed to pay more than $450,000 to a pair of former employees and institute a program to notify employees in federally funded programs of their religious freedom rights.The employees complained about being required to disclose their religious affiliations despite working in publicly funded areas of the organization, and were later forced out of their jobs for questioning those policies, according to the complaint.
The NYTimes has more on the settlement:
As part of the settlement, approved by a federal judge in Manhattan, the Salvation Army will distribute to its New York employees who work in programs that receive government financing a document stating that they need not adhere to the group’s religious principles while doing their jobs, nor may they be asked about their religious beliefs.
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The group, which administers millions of dollars in government contracts to run homeless shelters, soup kitchens, after-school programs and day care centers in the New York area, did not admit wrongdoing as part of the settlement.
Earlier settlements in the ten-year-old lawsuit included government agency audits to safeguard the separation of church and state with regard to taxpayer funds.
