Usually, when we talk about Republican politicians promoting religion, we’re talking about the Mike Pences of the world pushing their Christianity anywhere they can.
In Nevada, however, Brent Jones, a former assemblyman and current candidate for lieutenant governor, is apparently the subject of multiple lawsuits from employees of his bottled water company because, they say, he pushed Scientology on them.
Riley Snyder of the Nevada Independent has more:
… Jones and the parent company of Real Water, Affinitylifestyles.com, have been targeted in several discrimination lawsuits by former employees, including one centered on claims that the former lawmaker required her and other new employees to watch videos with Scientology undertones that promoted the controversial system of religious beliefs founded by writer L. Ron Hubbard.
While one district judge ruled in Jones’ favor and Jones himself denied these allegations, there’s plenty of evidence that Scientology propaganda made its way into training courses for staffers.
… court documents including depositions of Jones, his son and wife and a former top employee paint a picture of a workplace that appears to blur the lines between promotion of Scientology as a religion and various secular management techniques created by Hubbard and taught by groups close to the church.
… court documents indicate that he has closely integrated many aspects of Scientology into his Las Vegas business, which employs between 40 to 60 people at any given time.
One employee says Jones asked him to read L. Ron Hubbard’s The Way to Happiness, a secular-seeming pamphlet that nonetheless propagates his beliefs. That same employee said Jones required him to attend Narconon, another Hubbard-inspired program that focuses on substance abuse recovery.
There’s so much more in the article, but the point is that there’s plenty of evidence of Jones promoting Scientology, whether the courts deem it legal or not.
While there’s no religious test to run for public office, and no one’s stopping Jones from running due to his beliefs, voters have a right to weigh his decision-making skills when choosing who to support and a hell of a lot of his decisions appears to have been guided by Tom Cruise-style batshittery. Even for a Republican, that may be too far.
Read the full story at the Friendly Atheist Blog
