There's no pattern or rhyme or reason to the layoffs. You are way off base with your comment about not being the mainstream UPS culture or attacking the Christian background... 4 of my closest friends were let go and they were all American white males with Christian values... The only thing they all have in common is they have all had an LE in the past 8 months...most likely from a single manager that they didn't see eye to eye with...
Copper wasn't shooting at Christians, per se. He was alluding to the fact that one of the upper management guys making the decisions in Louisville is a devout attendee at a local mega-church known as "Six Flags over Jesus", which is very heavy with upper level UPSers, and local lore has it that the quickest way to get promoted (not just in IT, BTW) is to be there every Sunday rubbing shoulders with the Illuminati. Like most urban legends, this one does have a grain of truth in it. Networking is a key part of business success. At least you don't need a low golf handicap to schmooze with the Big Boys at church, and you might get some good out of the sermons, too.
To clarify another matter, the whole LE, ME, EE, O thing comes into play once a year, at pay raise time. When you get your salary review in March, the % increase is tied to this rating. (There is also a U, for unsatisfactory, but anyone deserving of that rating is generally gone before March) So when your boss sits down and explains your salary increase (or lack of one) to you, they should be mentioning this rating explicitly, because it is a key component of what your raise is.
Since no raises were given this year, I am not sure what happened with these reviews.
There is no doubt that some folks who got caught in this net were those whose only crime was doing "Less than expected" WRT butt-kissing. Some managers love having their butt cheeks gently lip-caressed, who wouldn't recognize a genuine contribution to software excellence if it walked up and punched them in the nose. These are generally poor managers, who we can only hope get their own opportunity to become available to the marketplace.