Shelter Director Bristles Against Recent Religious Censorship

By Allie Martin

August 18, 2005

(AgapePress) – The director of a homeless shelter in New Mexico is accusing a major daily newspaper of discrimination after an ad for employment was edited by a worker in the classified section.

Jeremy Reynalds is director of Joy Junction, a Christian homeless shelter that serves the Albuquerque area. Recently, he placed an advertisement for front office help in the Albuquerque Journal newspaper. The copy he originally submitted for the classified ad included a note that ministry experience would be helpful for applicants.

However, soon after the notice was placed with the paper, Joy Junction received a call from a Journal employee. “The individual said, ‘Your ad is discriminatory,” Reynalds explains. He says the newspaper refused to print the ad as originally written. It eventually ran, but only after being revised to omit the reference to ministry experience.

The Joy Junction spokesman says what happened “sort of reflects the basic lack of understanding about the needs and roles of not only us as a faith-based ministry but any faith-based ministry.” Because of this prevalent lack of understanding, he contends it is “very, very important” for people to understand that church groups and faith-based organizations like Joy Junction around the U.S. “are not a social service agency that only deals with physical hunger and need. We’re a church organization, a faith-based ministry.”

As such, Joy Junction and agencies like it need to be free to function in accordance with the faith and the values that form the foundation of their missions, Reynalds asserts. “Not only do we have a need, but we have a right, he insists, “to hire employees whose beliefs reflect those values. And evidently, that Journal employee failed to recognize, understand, or perhaps even care about that.”

Reynalds still wants to know why the Albuquerque Journal censored his help wanted ad. He says he has yet to be shown the guidelines for the newspaper’s classified section.

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