[soundwave106]

It's more the "reaction to diversity" that's the issue, in my opinion. Some areas unfortunately are not terribly friendly to non-white or non-Christian people. This sometimes is reflected in certain laws and may reflect in other cultural ways. This probably is not something any international-oriented company would look positively on, since international companies will have employees from a wide variety of cultures.

I remember when one of the consequences of Alabama's 2011 immigration laws was them ticketing or arresting two automobile executives. (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/dec/02/alabama-car-bo...) I thought at the time that was a (sarcasm) great promotion to international corporations of the benefits of putting an office in Alabama.

As an atheist I certainly wouldn't move into any very religious area, which unfortunately is a fair bit of rural places. (For examples why, see: http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2014/05/24/atheists-in-the-bib...)

[badpun]

That cnn article sure is interesting. Poland is supposedly one of more Christian countries in the world, but nothing even close to the stories from that article (losing job or customers after coming out as an atheist) ever happens here. I wonder how common such incidents are in the US.

[chrisco255]

I grew up in a rural part of Florida, and while I do remember atheism having a stigma about it in high school, it was more of a mild distaste people would share about it (mostly based on predispositions about it). That being said, religion is a Federally protected classification, so no one can fire someone over atheism and not risk a lawsuit in the U.S. Some of these articles are written by people who are as far removed from rural American life as they are from Poland...and I would take such articles with a grain of salt.