Dave Ramsey and Employment discrimination

So Dave Ramsey describes your potential employees fitting in with your philosophy. On page 143, he describes that as the "loving people" part of his philosophy. And those who don't get it as not understanding "when we stopped what we were doing and helped some hurting people." Very adroitly done to avoid an admition of religious discrimination.

On page 219, he speaks about a "devotional" but couches it as motivational speakers. Quite grey.

However, in his EntreLeadership podcast #2 he lets the mask slip. At 17:45 he says the "why" of his philosophy is "Because we are Christians." Who is the we in that sentence? He then goes on to expound on an example of "helping some hurting people." Namely: Praying for someone. So if you aren't the right religion, or you don't want to participate in a prayer session, you don't fit in.

He may get away with it by staying in Nashville, but that stuff won't only get you sued in other parts of the country, you will lose (even in Nashville, it is still a Federal problem).

Besides this, the book also encourages another form of discrimination, perfectly legal in Tennessee, but will get you sued in 20 states.

Page 146:

This may be the best advice in this whole book ... we not only get to meet the hire's spouse and get to know them before they join our team, we can solicit their input on whether they think this position will work for their spouse.

Asking them if they are married alone, with nothing else, is evidence of discrimination based on marital status. Anyway, in a lot of the country it won't do you much good in addressing the concern because "living in sin" is very common. Will you ask them if they have a roommate too?

However, besides for evidence, we have the advocacy of actual discrimination based on marital status:

Page 152:

I also won't let a team member stay if they decide to have an affair. If their spouse can't trust them, neither can I.

If an employee sleeps with someone, that's OK. If they were married to someone else, they are fired immediately. That is discrimination based on marital status. This is legal in Tennessee, but Dave Ramsey really makes himself look ignorant (I don't doubt that he actually knows this is a problem) here when he pretends this is not a problem for a significant portion of his audience.

Anyway, the bottom line is that today, common sense is illegal - be prepared for it.