How Should I Respond When My Employer Asks Me to Wear a Pride Pin?

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How Should I Respond When My Employer Asks Me to Wear a Pride Pin?

August 18, 2022

Questions about how to respond to an employer who asks why you’re not wearing the pride pin he gave you to wear and whether 1 Peter 3:15 is about hope in times of suffering rather than apologetics.

* How should one respond to an employer who asks why you’re not wearing the pride pin he gave you to wear on your lanyard?

* Isn’t 1 Peter 3:15 about hope in times of suffering rather than apologetics?

Transcript

#STRask How Should I Respond When My Employer Asks Me to Wear a Pride Pin? This is Amy Hall and Greg Koukl and you're listening to Stand to Reasons #STRask podcast. This first question, Greg, comes from a thoughtful dude. We've been getting some new people, which is great.

All right. And he asks, My daughter works as a social case manager. Today she was handed a pride pin by her boss to fix to her lanyard.

She took it but won't use it. How do you suggest she respond when/if she has asked why she's not wearing it? This is her dream job. This, I have a very simple response and I can tell you right now this is not going to sit well with people but it ought to.

The response is we wear pins like that in support of an idea or an ideology. I don't support the ideology of the idea so I'd rather not wear the pin or I'm not going to wear the pin. And now if you want to carry it further, if somebody said, okay, if I were, I'm in a role place but boss, if there's a complaint, if I were your boss and I was Roman Catholic and I said, it's Ash Wednesday and everyone has to have ash on their forehead because we are celebrating Ash Wednesday.

Would you consider that appropriate? It's actually a great illustration, great parallel. Would you consider it appropriate? No, why not? We are foreseeing because I don't believe in that and having the ash is an expression of my support of that or my belief in it. Right.

So why should you be forced to promote something or manifest something that you disagree with? Now of course nobody's going to give them. I'm trying to think of nice. They're not going to care about that.

They don't care about that. They do not care about liberty and freedom. I'm seeing an emotion about this.

It really bugs me. What they care about is forcing people to promote their ideas and using their power to force others to do things in good conscience. They should not be forced to do.

This is a power move to force people to promote an indoctrinated concept that they may disagree with. But this to me is the most defensible to deny. Sorry, I'm not going to wear the ribbon.

I'm not going to wear the flag, not or the thing. You work for us. Then that's I do, but I'm not yours.

My conscience does not belong to you. What I wear on my body expresses my conscience. Is this a Christian organization? Of course not.

I'm wearing a cross. Do I have to take my cross off because you guys don't believe in it? I mean, I just wrote playing kind of questions here. My wearing this piece identifies me with this thing, but I don't agree with this thing.

Now, I'm not making a fuss about the thing. You guys want to promote it? That's up to you. You're making me promoted.

I can't do that. I think you've given some good ideas there, Greg. I suspect she won't be asked.

I think there are a lot of people out there that they're doing what they're expected to do. The bosses are handing these things out, but they probably don't want trouble over it. I'm sure there are people who do, but I'm sure there are a lot of people who aren't.

So maybe you won't even be asked. But I like the examples that you gave. I have another idea too.

She could also say, "I am happy to wear any pen that promotes social work." Any kind of social work organization, because that's what this job is, and that's what I'm here to do. But this is unrelated to my job, and this is something, this is a controversial thing that's unrelated to my job. So it doesn't make sense to me to wear this, and I'm not going to put other things on my lanyard if I'm here as a social worker, and that's what I'm here to do.

That's a much milder approach, which people may want to take, but I don't think it goes to the heart of it. That is questioning the employers, the propriety of the employer promoting something unrelated to the business. Well, wait a minute.

I don't agree with this. It's kind of like if you had to wear a little green flag or whatever, because it's St. Patrick's Day. Well, that's not related to the business, but it is ideologically neutral.

But the same complaint could be raised there. I don't want to wear this because it's not related to my job. The complaint here is, it's a promotion.

I mean, the concern here is that this is an active promotion of something you think is wrong and shouldn't be promoted. And so the appeal that the worker is making is not to object to the wrong and to the promotion, if other people want to do it, that's their business. It's to object to being forced to promote something they think is wrong.

This is where I think that people have to say no. And if nobody says no, all these bullies, and I'm using my words, advisedly, these people are bullies. All of these bullies are going to keep bullying.

Okay. If we just say something, no, then now if push comes to shove, okay, I think you could be more aggressive in terms of making your point and ask the question, why is it for me to do my work here that I have to promote your politics? I have to promote your politics. Explain that to me.

And then you can use other illustrations. If there were Christians or Roman Catholics, whatever, you know, like the examples that I gave, you got to wear a cross, it's Easter, you got to wear a cross. It's Lent.

You have to have Ash Wednesday ashes. If it's, this is an Advent, so we have to put a religious wreath up or wear one on your thing, forcing others to do that. Would that be everybody's got to wear a Trump pin? Because that's what I believe.

See, they wouldn't agree with any of that stuff. Not only would they not agree with it, they would be aghast at the suggestion. Yeah, this is exactly the same kind of thing.

Part of my conviction of these kinds of things is if more people don't just say no, then that just emboldens the left to do these illicit things. And there's no CRT as an example, or if you want to call it I-E-I-D. And that's equity inclusion and diversity, which assists another acronym, just the same thing.

These are all these classes that are that people are being forced to take. This is all politics. It's all politics.

Why do I have to be indoctrinated by your politics in order to be able to work here? Oh, this is so that we can have more harmony here. This doesn't create harmony, it creates division. It's only harmony.

If you intimidate people into not disagreeing, then you don't have disagreement, but that's because you're using power to silence people. This isn't real harmony. Anyway, I wish more people would try to speak out.

And again, simply refuse to participate in our indoctrination. That's all. You're not opposing the idea itself.

This is just a refusal to be used as a pawn in this whole process. And more and more people are standing up for that, and I wish that they would. And if the guy says, "If you don't wear the pen, you're going to be fired." And then I think the person say, "All right, are you ready for a lawsuit?" Do you feel strongly enough about this to put up with a lawsuit because I am not wearing a pen that promotes your political ideas? And then I too.

I go to an organization like the... You can help me in this again. Alliance defending freedom. Yeah.

ADF for something like that. I wonder if also as a social case manager, if she's working for the government, I mean, that's... Well, what's that? That makes it even worse. Makes it even worse, of course.

But I really commend her for, first of all, not wearing it. I commend her for thinking about this and trying to figure this out ahead of time because I think we do need to think about these things and make our decision ahead of time. This is my line.

This is what I'm going to say. Yes. And this is what I will give up so that I am not promoting something I disagree with.

That's right. That's right. And I hope you don't have to... Your job is to not threaten, but that's... That is the basis of a lawsuit.

And when this stuff gets litigated, then these people are going to stop doing this stuff. But incidentally, I think the simplest way to deal with this, the very simplest way, your first line is, "No, thank you. No, thank you." With a smile, "No, thank you.

Go back to your work." "No, thank you." But we as a company are supporting this. Well, then you're walking to support it. But don't thank you.

You follow your conscience, employer. I'm going to follow mine. Well, thoughtful dude.

We would like to hear what happens with this. I'm very curious to hear if she's ever asked or what she says. Read the book, "Live Not By Lies." Because this isn't... What we're talking about here is discussed ideologically and culturally in that fairly easy to read book, but it's frightening.

Because this is the totalitarianism. This is the fascism that is taking over our country on multiple... Pardon me, on multiple levels, not just the hard totalitarianism from the government, but the soft totalitarianism from woke corporations and leftist corporations and enterprises like Google and Twitter, etc. All right, let's go to a question from Mariah Baum.

"Isn't 1 Peter 3.15 more about hope in times of suffering than about apologetics where hope isn't the issue? It seems to be taken out of context in apologetic circles." Okay. The verse that is usually... The way the verse is usually characterized is this way. Always be ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence.

All right. Now, let me just talk about the verse, and then I'm going to read more of the context. Okay.

What it says is that you are to not have hope in the midst of it. It presumes you do have a hope that you are supposed to characterize in almost a defensive way, but that has different connotation. Characterize your hope in a way that the hope that you have makes sense.

This isn't about having hope in persecution. This is about how you respond to persecution by explaining the reasons that you already have hope, and the hope we have is in Christ and eternal life, etc, etc. Lots of ways to characterize it.

All right. So this is a generalized command directive that we are to be ready to make an apologia. It's interesting people say, "Well, you're using this for apologetics, and maybe this isn't apologetics first, but that's the word.

This is where we get the word. Make a defense. This is an apologia to everyone who asks you to give an account for that hope in you.

Do it with gentleness and reverence," he says, and he gives the reasons why, because it's persuasive and it's virtuous. However, the directive is to be ready to make a defense. Now, when you read the larger context, he is talking about how we are to comport ourselves with other people.

In fact, for the chapter before, there's patterns of submission to government and to employers the way we would read it now, masters. Then there's patterns in marriage, first part of chapter three, six verses to women, second, then one verse to men, important things that they need to take. Then in verse eight, it says, "To sum up, all of you be harmonious," now all of you know this is like, "Here's how you to be in culture, in your relationships with your family, in your relationship with your employer, in your relationship with the government," whatever.

On balance here, let all of you be harmonious, sympathetic, brotherly, kind-hearted, humble in spirit, not returning evil for evil or insult for insult, but giving a blessing instead for your call to inherited blessing. Then there's an Old Testament passage he's mentioning. Then he says in verse 13, "Who is there to harm you if you prove zealous for what is good?" If you apply this stuff, what I just said, you're probably not going to have trouble.

Who is there to harm you? But then he answers this question, "Oh, well, some people will. What do you do then? Who is there to harm you?" But even if you should suffer for the sake of righteousness, a theme, by the way, through the whole book, good for you. Don't fear them.

Don't be troubled, but be ready to make a defense. So what we have here in verse 15 is a broad statement about being ready, and then in the context, it's giving a specific example where we employ our readiness, and that is in the midst of suffering unjustly. And in fact, in the second century, a lot of the original apologetics works were written to speak to those who were causing persecution among the Christians and defending the Christians as virtuous people and good citizens, by and large, against the challenges of the culture.

So I think that's how that all works together. So the idea here in this book, especially around this part, is even when you are being reviled, just as Jesus was reviled, he did not revile in return, what we are called to do is to continue to do what is right. And no matter what, however they are trying to harm you for your righteousness, we are to continue in that righteousness.

So he says, "But sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts. He is your Lord, you do not give in, you do not respond in kind, you do not respond with evil to evil. We're supposed to continue to do what God does." Now, when we do that, we're going to look different from the world.

When we suffer for righteousness, we, you know, just in the last question, she might suffer for righteousness. When people see that she lets her dream job go, if it comes to that, for the purpose of being righteous, what do you think they're going to think? They're going to think, "All right, she's serious. There's something she loves more than this job.

There's someone she loves more than this job. And now I want to understand, why would you give up this job? Why would you let people harm you for the sake of righteousness? What is your hope? What is your reason for this? That's what Peter's getting at. And that's what we're going to explain.

So even if this verse isn't talking about specifically apologetics arguments for God, it doesn't matter. What's happening here is that Peter is saying, put yourself in a position, where people are going to see that what you think is real, and they're going to ask you why you're doing what you're doing. And that's when you explain the gospel.

And that's where apologetics comes in. It comes in as we are explaining to the gospel to people who are making a case for the gospel. So even though he's not talking about apologetic arguments there, he's still talking about explaining what we believe in and making a case for that.

Sure. Just a kind of a secular reflection here, this is something that as individuals we should be doing, saying no to what's wrong, and being willing to pay the price for it. That's what Amy's been talking about.

Turns out there is quite a movement right now where lots and lots of people are saying no to what they think is wrong. This is right now mostly expressed with regards to the vaccine. And I'm going to take those sides on this right now, but I am just making the point.

There were a lot of people who will not take the, I know, I have friends of mine who have lost work. I have a friend who's a famous surgeon and he can't work in a lot of places because he will not get the vaccine. And my son, the same thing, he's a ear nurse and a whole bunch of other people.

And you've seen this, mass exodus, people in the military, they're leaving the military, they are leaving their form of employment to say, I am not going to succumb to an illicit totalitarian move, this being one of them, I believe. Again, I'm not weighing in one way or another, just saying this is what they're saying. And I'm willing to suffer loss to do what I think is the right thing.

So when Christians know these particular issues are mentioning, you're actually part of a larger movement saying no to a broader totalitarian impulse. So you're not so alone as you might have been apart from the circumstance. There are lots of people that are saying no now to to illicit intrusion into private lives.

And Christians of all people, I think, have the best foundation to say no on the kinds of things that we were the question was that Kelly was asking about. But there is there is a safety in doing what's right. There's also safety in numbers.

And so when you can do a right, which right and still have numbers that are kind of marching along with you, all the better for making a difference in culture. And what makes this situation in first Peter, even more powerful than say any other response to totalitarianism, people can see people can see even secular people can see the value of standing up against a totalitarian regime, especially looking back, even they can see that. But now imagine being in a situation where the only explanation is your love for God.

That is very powerful. That's that is a powerful testimony about the reality of God and the value of God, both of those things. And that's why our continuing to follow him through suffering is such a powerful thing that causes people to ask us about it.

Because when we live our lives, you could think about any number of moral, moral, I can't think of the word concerns issues. Any kind of of ways that Christians act, like say no sex outside of marriage, when people see that, they do not understand it. And they want to know why are you giving this up? What are you giving this up for? So there are all sorts of ways that that this plays out.

And it's a powerful testimony to the glory of God. All right, Greg, we're out of time. Thank you for your questions.

Thoughtful Dude and Mariah, we appreciate hearing from you. Send us your questions through our website or through Twitter with the hashtag #strask. This is Amy Hall and Greg Cocle for Stand to Reason.

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