Wiccan claims employment discrimination

A Chicago-area woman has filed an employment discrimination suit claiming she was fired for practicing Wicca.

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Rebecca Sommers says she got a good performance review from the Schaumburg office of Crawford & Co., a Georgia insurance company, before supervisors knew about her religion, the Chicago Sun-Times reports. She said in a federal lawsuit that after she asked for a day off on a Wiccan holiday she was told she was not returning calls fast enough and was eventually fired.

One supervisor told her to keep her religion quiet, she said, and another told her that Wicca is devil worship.

Wiccans are nature-worshippers who say they believe that they are following the religion practiced in Europe before the Roman conquest and spread of Christianity.