My wife used to work as the administrator at a Presbyterian church. Once, while having a theological/historical discussion with her boss, the minister, on the topic of the story of Easter, the minister ended the conversation by saying with a wry smile, "of course, if you believe any of that."
In Judiasm, as I imagine in most religions, there can be a pull that has nothing to do with belief or non-belief and that relates to the whole thread of one's historical-ethno-social background. It's hard to step on all those generations of ancestors even if you don't buy into their belief systems. While I have no faith and celebrate holidays only as secular festivals (including ones from outside my own upbringing), I'd be lying if I didn't admit to fond memories of family gatherings past that, while ostensibly about a religious celebration, were, for me anyway, really about being among relatives, eating and conversing.
Back to the topic of the law: if it came naturally and easily for us humans to obey laws, there'd be little need for armies of enforcers and lawsuits. It's clearly very easy to cross the line, even for the pious. In the case of B&H, if, in fact, they did discriminate, I would doubt they saw themselves as doing so. I would guess their sense of tradition overcame their willingness to comply with or even understand and accept labor laws. If you grew up being taught that men and women have fundamentally different roles and obligations in the world, Title VII is probably easily ignored until someone complains. For many of B&H's employees from very traditional Orthodox Jewish households, whatever employment practices were being followed probably seemed perfectly normal and right. For people raised outside that tradition, or those from within it who are brave enough to question it, it might be pretty obvious that some practices, while okay to them (shall we say, without offending anyone, "kosher" with a small "k"?), they'd certainly strike a labor/employment lawyer or judge is being rather uncool and illegal.
The courts and the lawyers and the parties will figure this out. B&H makes mountains of money (I was told privately almost five or six years ago that they were doing $1 Billion annually! not sure if this is true), which would certainly put the owners/management in equally good positions to fight vigorously or settle generously. I'd bet they'll do the fighting for a while and then, later, settle. That's just good business. If the people running the place didn't have signficant business acumen, we would never have read about the suit in the Times; they made it into the newspaper because they are big and successful now. Someone earlier in the thread pointed out a Google search stat of some 16,000 employment discrimination suits. We only read about the juiciest ones. This one is juicy because it might, theoretically anyway, pit tradition against the law. Always newsworthy. In the end, no matter what the outcome might be, rest assured that lawyers from both parties will be satisfied with nice fees. Great country, isn't it?
It's a confusing mess, for sure. Just as there are many "Christmas and Easter" Christians there are a lot of "Hannuka and Passover" Jews. The traditions and festivities are nice, a connection with the past and a time for the family to gather together. According to an article that I read yesterday on Alternet a hefty majority of both camps are closet atheists. As a Congregationalist minister friend of mine put it "There's no way that an intelligent person can get all the way through seminary without becoming at least an agnostic, but don't tell anybody that I said that!"
