Wouldn't it be awesome if they made Hunting Games?

Yea but if someone does NOT hire a person because they are a vegetarian, then you will hear hell about it.

For every non carnivorous game you buy, I'll buy three.

This certainly doesn't seem like it should be legal.

I doubt their games would be any fun. Only thing that bothers me more than a vegetarian is a vegan. Bleh

Numerous job listings in the Israeli tech trade press have a line that is getting increasingly popular, "Non-Smokers Only".

This is in a country that has a disproportionate number of tobacco users.

What about folks like me that have an occasional, imported cigarette? (I asked a consulting client):

"well, it would be a problem if you were full time."

OK, that case established that you can require someone who works in a hospital to get a MUMPS vaccination. The guy was rightfully terminated because "he refused to take a mumps vaccination". It is in the public interest to have hospital workers vaccinated.

There is no public interest in hiring only vegetarians. This job posting is another sign of how little regard for the law some employers have. Someone with proper C++ credentials should apply for the job, then once they are turned down refer these guys to the OCR. This kind of discrimination has got to stop.

Again, this is not legal advice and should not be taken as legal advice.

Christ, only is San Fran could such asinine requirements be put forth for jobs.

San Frans Utopia will come into being once they rid the planet of non-vegan/white/anglo-saxon/hetero males because they are obviously (according to them) responsible for the ills of the world.

What next?
All applicants must be of a vegan organic nature.

You can't create a sports game and be vegetarian. Unless it's something wussy and European. Otherwise, in order to make a football game, you have to force an IV drip of beef into your employees. And basketball? KFC is on speed dial.

The thing is, being vegetarian is a state of mind. I've know a lot of Vegans for whom it seemed like it was their HOBBY to be vegetarian.

It's all they ever talked about.

I had a gf who was vegetarian and it was fine but I REALLY wouldn't want to get anywhere near those people in a work environment. Especially if they outnumber me.

This should be illegal. I don't care what you eat, but it's as arbitrary as what gender you choose as a sexual preference - it has nothing to do with being qualified for a job.

I work with some vegans; it's a bitch picking a place for lunch.

Gotta love the elitest attitude of these folk, eh?

What the hell? This is discrimination, how is this legal?

Oh and like maddox once said;

For every animal you don't eat, i'll eat three.

As WAGCURIOUS said, the case was a matter of super-vegan not wanting to take a vaccine that was cultured in chicken embryos because in his opinion his position wasn't one at risk to mumps. He was completely wrong, of course. But the precedent looks like it's pretty specific -> Vaccinations can be a requirement for employment. It doesn't say "Some random vegetarian can make a company that discriminates against the average person." Again, not legal advice. Just logic.

@ArmyofJuan: Perhaps you could enlighten us as to why vegetarians and vegans bug you.

@ProsumeThis: Vegans, yes, but it's usually pretty easy for vegetarians.

@brent_w:
@WagCurious:
@dunetiger : rock you like a hurricane:
@Tomahawk214:

It's legal because there isn't a specific prohibition of it. If laws said it employers may only discriminate on the ability to perform a job, it would be illegal.

Well, that's obviously willful misinterpretation. The ruling was decided because there are some situations in which a vegetarian lifestyle would be wholly inappropriate for a job. For example, you're not going to hire a vegan to work at KFC, as it might harm business. Refusing to hire an omnivore, simply because you disapprove of their lifestyle is nothing more than petty discrimination.

I don't know the legality of this under the laws of "equal opportunity," but I empathize with the sentiment.

Aside from the moral implications of consuming sentient beings that feel pain, a carnivorous planet Earth is not sustainable if human population keeps growing at its current rate.

Yeah, I know its immature but my first thought was: "How is it ok to specify veggie interns but you can't say sexy interns, or tall interns, etc or you would get sued."

Note that I'm arguing that you should be able to advertise for sexy interns ;)

@topaz420: Yeah, thats why the simpler solution, crazy as it sounds, will probably be birth restriction and cultural shifts away from large families and unsustainable (ie factory/mass) farming of all types of agricultural products. That and bio-engineering, rather than a mass shift to vegetarianism (however much sense that may make), is where humans will probably go to solve the problems you're alluding to.

That or we'll kill each other off, its hard to make an argument either way as to which solution would be better, sometimes I wonder if we're not just a parasitic infection the Earth is ramping up to purge ;)

It's easy enough to lie about being a vegetarian, then go home and eat tasty animals.

@Kirbytheslayer: Hot Tears of Shame for Life!: How would hiring a vegan at KFC harm business? As long as he does his job and doesn't insert commentary, there isn't a problem.

Proud Vegetarian. But I don't mind killing animals in video games. I know the difference, so unless there's a moral here they probably should stop caring.

(Post Script) I have nothing against cannibalism. Call me Hannibal.

@sample032: I'm not making a blanket statement here, but I'm pointing out a common trend: Vegetarians are the most vocal of all fringe groups, save conservative Christians. If you meet a vegetarian, under any situation, within thirty seconds, you will know that they're a vegetarian. They're likely to be the one's to make commentary that would damage sales. The only way to really be assured that they won't do something like that is if they don't belong to a radical vegetarian group such as PETA, and you won't find a vegetarians who aren't.

Now, I know this doesn't apply to all vegetarians, it just applies to a massive majority.

@sample032:

"Perhaps you could enlighten us as to why vegetarians and vegans bug you."

You.

But seriously, you don't like meat, fine, fucking fine, just don't rub that chip on your shoulder in everyone's face, since that's pretty much the reputation hardcore vegetarians/vegans have, especially with me. I've been patient, I'm very, very patient, but one more time, if I get any shit just one more time from ordering some kind of meat anywhere, I'm going to strangle that person on the spot, so for all you vegi hippies out there. The next person you try to enlighten about the evils of meat, that just might be me, and I might just kill you, so keep that in mind.

@WagCurious:

@Kirbytheslayer: Hot Tears of Shame for Life!:

I love you guys.

@abmw:

Who the hell imports a cigarettes? You import cigars ya nut :D

@Double J: I don't know if you've traveled much to Europe, but vegetarians usually have a tough time over there. A vegan sport is more likely to appear in California or India than in France or Germany.

I still don't see how ripping a head of lettuce out of the ground, and thus killing it, is somehow better than doing pretty much the same thing to animals.

Last I heard, plants are alive. When we pull a head of lettuce to make our salad, it dies. "Well animals can feel pain", well maybe plants can too. Just because they don't have a nervous system doesn't mean they can't feel pain, and it's not like we can ask it. I mean, sea sponges, which is considered an animal, don't have nervous systems. Should we eat them?

@Xagest: Buy a live chicken, butcher it, then get back to me.

@Bando: Whoa, easy there. sample032 was being fairly polite; you're the one who's walking around with a chip on your shoulder.

I'm not really getting the rabid vegetarian hate going on. Yes, there are annoying vegetarians out there, but they're the only ones that get noticed really. There's tons of vegetarians out there who aren't rubbing their lifestyles in your face, but you don't know they're vegetarian for exactly that reason. It looks like there's plenty of anti-vegetarians that will go rubbing their opinions in your face here too.

I'm not vegetarian, and I'm not sympathetic to vegetarianism, but it's turning into a witch hunt here.

@Hand_O_Death: But that's exactly what this is based on to begin with, the fact that someone was allowed to not hire someone based soley on the fact they were a vegan. Now these people are doing the opposite and not hiring anyone that eats meat.

I personally think vegetarianism/veganism is stupid, but to not hire someone over it, or vice-versa, is much, much more stupid.

@sample032: Watch grain for vegetarians being farmed. Watch the cute chipmunks being forced into the combine as their heads are crushed. Then, get back to me.

@Absent Blue: Read the original issue. The law was decreed because the guy refused to get a vaccination-in a hospital. It was more of a case against stupidity than vegan culture itself.

"such as Microsoft and Square Enix, as well as consulting experience at McKinsey. Our management team includes MIT-educated computer scientists and Wharton and INSEAD MBAs."

I'd have to work with dicks who came from Microsoft, McKinsey, MIT and INSEAD as well as not eat meat? I'd interview for the job if only to find out who these people are and be sure our paths never crossed again.

*rolleyes* how very san bloody francisco..

will they all have the collective strength to push their mice?

office full of veggies = bad fartsmells.

@sample032:

Hence why I said it SHOULD be illegal. There's no prohibition saying that I can't rub a dookie-covered undergarment all over my friend's face, but I can guarantee you that he'll be quite upset about it.

There is also no prohibition stating that I couldn't do the complete opposite with my own startup company stating that I don't want to hire any vegetarians because I eat meat, but again, I can guarantee you that there'll be quite a few people upset about it.

Discrimination, legal or not, is just not the way things should be done, no matter what your ideals are. I couldn't care less if my boss ate meat, fruits, or a staple diet of ... staples. The point is that it doesn't change how he does his job and nobody should ever feel justified with this kind of move.

Put it like this:

"A male-owned and managed emerging sports games startup in San Francisco is looking to hire male software development interns for summer 2008 (and potentially beyond) who are interested in entrepreneurship and promoting manliness."

Is this any different than the listing above? I don't think so.

@celery:

Who said I was being serious about the killing part, that's crazy :p

Oh, I'm kidding, I'm dead serious (translation, I was kidding, no... not much offense meant, vegi folk are fine by me, as long as they don't give me grief about ma baconz LOL)

@sample032:

I actually don't mind vegetarians too bad. It's just when you yourself eat meat and they bug you about how meat is so horrible and go on this huge peta rant. But for th emost part, the veggies i know i good people and tip well.

Vegans on the other hand bug me because they are bland and boring an dyou can never go anywhere with them because every resturants menus items have atleast some form of dairy in them and it's very difficult.

Plus i don't even understand how you could refuse dairy. What other purpose are cows for other than to give us meat milk and cheese? If you arnt going to eat any of those, all these cows are being slaughtered for no reason.

Will they take omnivorous VC money, or just vegan VC funding?

???? I've got meat inside me, does that mean I don't have what it takes to be a vegetarian intern? Looks like they're trying to hire the Scarecrow from Wizard of Oz, pre-brain version.

I bet I couldn't get away with discriminating against hiring vegetarians if I needed to hire a beefsteak taster - mmmmm, steak.

@Alex:
You don't like eating lower lifeforms, but have nothing against eating your fellow man?

WHAT THE [long string of expletives deleted]

I know a vegetarian restaurant that forbids it's staff from eating meat at the restaurant (bringing in lunch, etc). The reason being vegetarian customers getting put off by any smell of meat.

@abmw: I worked for a company in that had a 'no smokers' policy, their justification was to reduce insurance costs. I suppose it is legal in the USA, or at least Texas, which threw me for a loop.

It's always the drama of the few making the rest of us vegetarians look like assholes.

As for the "vegetarians are weak" stigma, learn a goddamned thing about nutrition and protein. All that does is tell everyone else that you are the one that doesn't have the slightest clue of how to properly take care of yourself.

@Alex: Sooo...eating animals is immoral but eating people isn't???

If it's a joke, it's so sick it's funny. If not...I'm officially scared now.

Where there's veggies, there's hot hippie chicks. And hot hippe chicks are all about free love.

True, but there are few hot women in high-tech and even fewer in engineering-driven early-phase startups.

Let's face it, this is a company peopled by guys who eat too many cheese pizzas.

The basis of employment-discrimination law is the concept of the "protected category." Sex, race, religion, age, veteran status: these are all protected categories. Whether one likes to gnaw upon the toesies of cute crunchy naminals is not a protected category. Thus the employer is perfectly free to decline to hire carnivorous C++ coders, just as EDS is perfectly free to decline to hire long-haired hippie freaks.

Just as WagCurious is always quick to point out, this is not legal advice. I Am Not A Lawyer. I just remember what the HR bozo told me during that interminable "Managing within the Law" seminar.

@Xagest:

Plant food can be harvested without killing the plant -- in this sense we can live healthy lives while maintaining a symbiotic relationship with life on Earth, rather than an antibiotic one.

@Kirbytheslayer: Hot Tears of Shame for Life!:

Combinator deaths are tragic. We can reduce them by shopping from growers that don't use combines (pricey, but they're out there), by growing our own foods, and most of all, by lowering or eliminating the consumption of animals. Combine deaths can be reduced by 90% by eliminating the slaughter industry, which needs to harvest 10 portions of plants (feed) to produce 1 portion of slaughtered animal meat.

Death is unavoidable. We step on ants without knowing it, and kill microorganisms with our every breath. But consciously and willfully attempting to preserve and protect as much life as possible in our short time on Earth should be applauded, not ridiculed.