No, read the article again. They didn't need to pass the same test to the same degree - the criteria was also changed to have "qualified" and "well qualified".
It's worth nothing that this change happened before the questionnaire was instituted. (The paper referenced in the article was from 2006, I haven't dug enough to find a date for when this change was made, but the narrative in the article also establishes this act as happening in the '00s.) Additionally, from the Conclusions:
"Reweighting was based on data collected from incumbent ATCSs who took AT-SAT on a research basis; some of these employees achieved overall scores less than 70 (that was one of the reasons for the reweighting effort – a belief that incumbent employees should be able to pass the entry-level selection test)."
I don't think this proves that the update to the test was good or bad in overall competency, but I do think it's worth investigating if the test should be updated when existing employees are unable to pass.
For a long time now, many people who's religious values are deeply important to them have felt disrespected and looked down upon by "the left" (yes, I'm obviously painting with a broad brush here). In subtle and not-so-subtle ways, the elite left essentially said "you all are backwards and silly". And look, I'm an atheist who has felt acute harms from religion in some very specific ways, so I get it - a lot of times I believe that religion is backwards and silly. But Trump and MAGA came along and essentially said "you're not backwards and silly, you're the righteous ones, the ones who are condemning you are backwards and silly". And yes, Trump has been married 3 times, had an affair with a porn star while his wife was pregnant, values displays of material wealth above all else, etc. etc., so I struggle mightily many times to understand how a community that preached "family values" so stridently for my entire youth supports him now so unconditionally. But, IMO, it's because Trump really constantly drove home this message of "you should be proud, and the only people who should be ashamed are 'the other side'".
I know that may feel like a tangent, but I've seen the general dismissive tone of this article repeated so many times (e.g. in much reporting about the Chick-fil-a family) that it now feels easy to recognize.
I don't doubt there are those who have had uncomfortable, rude encounters with anti-religious people, but I do doubt how frequently this occurs. I grew up in a fundamentalist Christian family and we openly prayed before meals at restaurants and never had a single issue. I attended a public school and had plenty of friends who were remarkably tolerant of when I got a bit weird about religion (including calling a friend's family "heathens" for not following the right type of Christianity). Yes, there was one classmate in high school who was outspoken, a bit angry and sometimes rude about her "leftist" beliefs but she was one classmate among many! And yet every week in Church I heard about how the world was against us, we were so persecuted and hated, silly comments like "oh you'd get in trouble if you brought a bible in your backpack to your public school" which wasn't true at all.
In my experience it's an identity built on being "different", on believing that others want to tear you down because of your beliefs. And a narrative that pushes this identity, by amplifying anything that could come across as disrespectful or dismissive, setting it up for someone to come in and say "you should be proud of yourself." And when this includes stupid things like Starbucks changing their cups to say Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas, I really don't think "be nicer" is going to help.