Are Grades important for a Programming Job?

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Do Grades matter for Employers in getting a job?

Sometimes yes mostly no. Hiring managers sometimes care about grades.

a potential employer has nothing else to go by no work experience, open source project development, etc, then that's the only physical thing they can evaluate you by. Typically, it doesn't matter as much as you actually knowing your stuff. If you have a GPA of less than 2.0, and don't have other experience to back you up, you can expect some data structures questions to make sure you actually know that material, even if you did bad on all your tests in school.

Put yourself in the place of a hiring manager or HR at a large or not so large company. You have one or two entry level positions to fill, and 100 applicants.

Easiest thing to do is filter out everyone with a GPA less that 3.0 or 3.5. True, you may eliminate a truly good candidate.

But you will also cut down on your workload, and the time before you can hire someone. hiring managers goal is not to fairly evaluate all of the potential candidates, it is to fill the positions with good or great people as quickly as possible.
Anything you can do to make yourself stand out in relation to your competition is a good thing. Anything that raises questions in the mind of the person reviewing your resume, deserved or not, is a bad thing