Atheist annoyed by churchgoers, files complaint

Russ Jones   (OneNewsNow.com) Monday, July 09, 2012

A legal representative is "incensed" that an atheist man has filed a discrimination lawsuit against a family-owned restaurant in Pennsylvania for offering discounts to churchgoers.

Sharon Prudhomme, one of the co-owners of Prudhomme Lost Cajun Kitchen in Columbia, has been in business for nearly 20 years. She offers a ten-percent discount to customers who bring in a church bulletin on Sundays.

But in his complaint filed with the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission, atheist John Wolff claims the discount discriminates against him because he does not attend church. The Commission is now investigating the restaurant. Wolff tells the Examiner.com, "In this area in particular, we seem to have so many self-righteous religious people, so it just annoys me."

That kind of thinking angers Randall Wenger, chief council of the Independence Law Center, which is representing the restaurant owners.

"I think we're so incensed at this point that God ... religion and particularly Christianity [are] being treated as something toxic and poisonous and undeserving to be in the closet," Wenger comments. "It's one thing when government does it -- that's bad enough. But now, for government to be forcing, or trying to force, a private restaurant owner to treat religion as something toxic, I think just has a lot of people upset." The restaurant owners have offered various discounts over the years. The church bulletin discount began just over a year ago. "The agency should have looked at this thing and just thrown it out from the get-go because they're not supposed to investigate claims that are frivolous," Wenger asserts. "Here you've got somebody who's basically just saying hey -- church attendance is a good thing, and anybody who brings in a church bulletin, we're going to give a ten-percent discount on Sundays."

The restaurant owners have 30 days to respond to the complaint.