A small group of Christian employees at NASA is threatening to sue the organization for what they are calling censorship after NASA officials told them to stop using the name Jesus in their company emails.

According to The Hill, Liberty Institute, a Christian Right group that is representing the employees, said the group of Christian employees has been meeting during their lunch break for a praise and worship club since 2001.

“It is illegal for the government to censor the name of Jesus from emails authored by employees,” Jeremy Dys, senior counsel for Liberty Institute, said in a statement. “Preventing a religious club’s announcement just because it contains the name ‘Jesus’ is blatant religious discrimination. We call on NASA to end their censorship and apologize.”

NASA has told the club they are free to meet, but when using company email have stated they must not use religious language. After all, it is their email system, not the employees. A Christian group would be a private group, not NASA sponsored and using NASA email for such a group should be a violation of company policy, regardless of its religious content.

Of course, the religious group believes this is a violation of their religious freedom. This is likely because as most people crying religious freedom, they have no idea what it means.

“We are shocked that NASA would censor the name of Jesus from our Praise and Worship Club’s announcement,” said Sophia Smith, a NASA employee who is one of the Christian employees claiming religious discrimination.

“NASA has a long history of allowing religious speech by employees,” she added. “In fact, in 1968, Apollo 8 astronauts read from the Bible while they were orbiting the moon, and it was broadcast on TV. So why would they ban ‘Jesus’ from our announcements?”

NASA is a government agency and should not be allowing religious groups to use their email system to promote religion. End of story.

This religious group is not entitled to special treatment from NASA or anyone else.

Photo credit: JD Hancock cc