I work for a dealership in Illinois. Yesterday we had a company meeting/lunch in the showroom, and the CEO went over various awards and anniversaries of the company. Typical small business white collar stuff.
Recently, we've had a coworker whose wife has been in the hospital with some pretty severe complications. We've started a fund for the companies in the group of dealerships we're a part of to raise money to help our coworker with expenses during her stay.
Before we start the meetings, we usually eat for about 15 minutes or so before we get into the business part, and being from a primarily Christian area, a lot of people participated in a group prayer, which is nothing unusual.
However, after we ate and before the awards, the CEO tells everyone, “regardless of your religious beliefs, I'd like you all to stand and make a circle, place your hand on somebody and we're just gonna pray for Blank's wife.”
Being an atheist myself I felt very uncomfortable doing this, and stood in the far back, away from everyone else with my hands to myself and my eyes open.
Is this considered discrimination, or is this illegal in any sense? Is there something I can do to prevent this from happening in the future? I'm all about supporting someone in a hard time, but this doesn't sit well with me.
Edit: said coworker was not present and scripture from the Christian Bible was read aloud.
I was present, I stood back away from the circle as I didn't want touched and didn't want to be apart of the prayer.
Yes I believe in religious freedom, however I don't believe that it should be in the workplace unless specifically suggested by the religion's practices.