Speak English!

Original: May 1, 2007
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Just in case you were wondering how that check you sent to Uncle Sam a few weeks ago is being spent, here's part of it: The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (aka: Department of Political Correctness) is suing the Salvation Army.

One of the things the Salvation Army does that I applaud (and there are many), is require its employees to speak English. In 2003, a federal judge in Boston issued an opinion upholding that policy. A year later, a Salvation Army thrift shop in Framingham, Mass. did what, by any measure, was the right thing, it gave two of its Hispanic employees a full year to learn English. By rights, they could have handed them a check and said 'adios.' But they didn't, they gave the employees, who had already been working there for five years, another full year to comply with the organization's policy. In 2005, when the workers still could not speak English, they were fired. That should be the end of the story – actually, it shouldn't be a story at all, people get fired every day that you and I don't really need to know about.

Enter your tax dollars at work. The EEOC decided the Salvation Army's actions had caused "emotional pain, suffering, loss of enjoyment of life, embarrassment, humiliation and inconvenience," and sued them. What? These yahoos had been on the job for five years and had not learned enough English to communicate effectively with their co-workers. The good people at the Salvation Army (and they are good people, you can't argue that) gave them another year to boost their skills and they didn't. The Salvation Army should sue the two workers for that year's salary!

But no, instead we have a government-run, taxpayer-funded organization screwing around with a faith-based, charitable, not-for-profit organization. And now there are two piles of money that came from you being spent on idiocy: Your tax dollars are paying for government lawyers who are prosecuting the Salvation Army. The change you drop in their bucket each Christmas is being spent, instead of on continuing their charitable work, on more lawyers to defend their right to require those they hire to speak their language.

¡Dios mio! ¿Qué está sucediendo aquí?