The problem isn't in looking for someone who has "passion" but it is with judging candidates based not upon their ability to do the job, but on other factors.

The problem isn't in looking for someone who has "passion" but it is with judging candidates based not upon their ability to do the job, but on other factors. Companies in US are not allowed to discriminate based upon things like commute time, family situation at home, age, etc. - none of which factors into how well they can do the job once they are at work and on "company time" - and the argument that what someone does on their personal time falls into this category of judging someone based on factors beyond "Can the applicant perform this job?" is pretty easy to make. So it's fine to look for passion - but people hiring and doing interviewing should be very cautious about what they say (and especially what they tell applicants) about how they are going to judge your level of passion, unless they want to open themselves up to potential discrimination suits (or so my possibly overly cautious corporate HR department would have us believe).