US court upholds firing for anti-gay Bible quotes

Reuters via forbes ^ | 1/6/04 | Reuters

[machman]

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A federal appeals court Tuesday upheld a lower court ruling that Hewlett-Packard Co. did not violate the rights of a devout Christian employee when it fired him for posting Biblical scriptures on his cubicle that were critical of homosexuality.

The San Francisco-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit held that HP did not discriminate against Richard Peterson when it fired him after he posted quotes from the Bible in his cubicle in response to company posters featuring gay employees.

The HP posters, which carried the slogan "Diversity is Our Strength," were part of an effort to promote the computer and printer maker's bid to hire and retain a diverse work force.

Peterson was fired for insubordination after refusing to remove the biblical postings, which managers determined could be viewed as offensive.

Judge Stephen Reinhardt wrote that Peterson, a veteran HP employee who worked in HP's Boise, Idaho office, had failed to provide evidence he was sacked for his religious beliefs.

Instead, Reinhardt held Peterson was fired for repeatedly disregarding instructions to remove his biblical postings, including one from Leviticus explicitly addressing homosexuality.

A passage, which Peterson had conceded was "intended to be hurtful," reads: "If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them."

Judge Reinhardt said it would have been an "undue hardship" for HP to have accommodated Peterson's demands that he be allowed to post scriptures in response to the posters, or that he remove his postings in exchange for HP taking down its posters promoting diversity.

Either option would have also hurt the company's efforts to "attract and retain a qualified, diverse work force, which the company reasonably views as vital to its commercial success," Reinhardt wrote.

Lawyers for Peterson and Palo Alto, California-based HP could not be immediately reached for comment.

Copyright 2004, Reuters News Service

[Dog Gone]

I'm pretty much through trying to make you understand.

[Hodar]

So a private company can fire a christian, but isnt allowed to fire a homo.

Please read the article. The Christian was fired for creating a hostile work environment. He was told to take down the offending religious phrases down, and he decided that he would rather be unemployed instead of harassing gay co-workers.

I imagine if you had an Islamic person who had his Koran open, and had passages plastered around concerning murdering Jews and Christians, you would say that was wrong. Well, in the USA, all religions are equal under the law. So, HP did the wise thing. If a Christian can use the bible to harass, then a Muslum can use the Koran; or no one can harass anyone. I prefer not having to deal with this crap, personally.

[xzins]

I agree with almost all that you've said (including having the posters disappear :>)

I disagree that the company should have cared about some guy's bible verses.

If it wasn't profane, racist, or dangerous/violent, then I'd just assume I had some fundamentalist employees and some gay employees, and I'd go about my workday.

I think they were hyper-sensitive and in the long run they have injured their creative climate.

Just my humble, lil ole, 2 cents worth of opinion.

X

[Prime Choice]

You want the courts to tell you that your local religious book store has to hire a cross dressing Satanist? HP is a private company and it can have whatever objectives its shareholders allow it to have.

I would assent to that if...if, mind you...the government kept its nose out of private businesses like restaurants. But instead, the government goes out of its way to interfere in private businesses whenever it likes.

And if the oh-so-private, publicly-traded HP decided it didn't want to hire minorities, do you think the government would take a hands-off approach? Oh-hohohoho! Think again.

[little jeremiah]

Now, if you don't like those rules, you are free to go work in a location where you can discriminate and harass your favorite scapegoat to your heart's content.

Are you saying that having Bible quotes IN one's own work space is discriminating and harassing people? Are you saying that homosexuals are scapegoats? Your points are unclear.

[little jeremiah]

What don't I understand? I understand that if one works at HP, one can't have quotes from the Bible within the confines of one's own workspace that state homosexuality to be wrong.

I wonder if one could have quotes displayed from the Manu Samhita or Buddhis ethics sutras stating the same thing?

I wonder if one could have quotes from ACT-UP stating that "gay is good" in one's cubicle?

[FR_addict]

"I wonder...how does a poster depict gay people as a show of "diversity"?"

That's what I want to know. A workplace is suppose to be just that a workplace. We should not have to be subjected to pc brainwashing in our workplaces or in our schools.

I can understand the man's frustration in posting the Bible quote.

[Hodar]

Discrimination against any class of worker that does the job hurts only the business in the long run.

I concur 100%

I think if his objective had NOT been to intentionally offend, he would have a legit case (whether I agree with him or not).

And we agree here too. If he had a cross hanging in his office, I doubt he'd be targetted. But he chose to use his religion as a weapon, to create a hostile work environment. Hardly Christ-like, IMHO. This cannot be tolerated by any company, whether it's Christianity, Jewish, Islamic, Satanic or Wiccan (or buddist, hindu, ect.).

That said, I would love to see the 9th get overturned on this one, and the turmoil it could cause.

This is where we disagree. I don't want the gov't stepping in and telling me (as a private business) that you have to tolerate a religious bigot spouting hate towards anyone. That means that I would have to tolerate a Palestinian screaming for the murder of every Jew in my employ. I'd have to suffer through every bible beater who felt obliged to come give a sermon while I had no choice but to sit and listen. Just about everyone HAS to work, we do not have a choice. At home, we can either accept this behavior, or ignore it. But at work, we are captive. I, for one, do not want ANYONE selling their religion to me. I have my own, I'm quite happy with it; and who, when, and how I worship is no body's business. I prefer it stay that way.

[Destro]

Gotta be honest, man, this is a private company, not the government. They're welcome to screw up their workforce however they want.

AMEN!

[Hodar]

Are you saying that having Bible quotes IN one's own work space is discriminating and harassing people?

Well, since you brought it up; the only reference to the bible in the article was in the book of Leviticus, and the verse dealing with gays is:

Leviticus 20:13 If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.

I'd call that 'creating a hostile environment', wouldn't you?

[new cruelty]

Regarding company posters, I thought this one was great.

Most of us spend our lives seeking our destiny

[zerosix]

My son-in-law has worked for HP for a very long time and in the past 5 years, the employees have been forced to attend many "diversity" training seminars, starting with if your eye happens to catch a female (and you are male, that is)for more than 6 seconds, you can be charged with sexual harassment, then they have moved on to "other sexual" issues, i.e. gay, lesbian, transgendered, bi-sexuals are just the same as hetros and no offensive looks, references, etc. will be tolerated. When it came time to "role play" my son-in-law stated that he refused to do so and that, while he wouldn't treat anyone, regardless of their sexual preference, badly, he didn't believe that he should be forced to acknowledge that their lifestyle was acceptable to him, as it was not. He has been told in no uncertain terms that if he chooses to continue his employment with HP he should keep his opinions to himself, he countered with "why should I when no one else does?" Needless to say, he was asked by his supervisor not to return to the seminar after lunch.

[Dog Gone]

What don't I understand? I understand that if one works at HP, one can't have quotes from the Bible within the confines of one's own workspace that state homosexuality to be wrong.

He "intended them to be hurtful." Those are his words. In the workplace to fellow employees.

Tomorrow, I hope that all your fellow employees post signs in the office saying "little jeremiah sucks. Death to little jeremiah."

And when the boss tells them to take those signs down, I'll expect you to be defending those employees.

As far as your contention that those signs were clearly WITHIN his cubicle, your logic does indeed suck. He was trying to be hurtful, and you don't do that by hiding your messages.

[Havoc]

Hp's are crap to begin with from a professional standpoint. I used to sell them for a living. They build decent printers; but, Lexmark outdoes them hands down on print quality. Their machines were nothing if not problematic. Turn around on replacement parts sucked... I could go on and on. Right up to the point HP bought Compaq, they were being outmanuevered, outsold, out finessed, outclassed, etc by Compaq. The move to buy them was a plea for survival. The writing was on the wall for HP when the 1+Ghz processors hit the market and HP couldn't step up to the plate to compete. Compaq was literally able to put an aftermarket style board in a full tower unit with an amd processor in it and all namebrand internals - sound blaster audio, 3dfx video, etc at a lower asking price than a midtower HP with less processing power, half the features, no namebrand components.. The Compaq tower featured dvdrom and a cdwriter along with one of the largest available drives on the market. And I didn't have to worry about them coming back.

Long and short, if you want to avoid HP like the plague, you can do it because their product sucks and is overpriced.
You can do it because their product support stinks as well.
Or you can do it because they take a moral stance you don't like or all of the above. LOL. Howsat? BTW, I can't stand Dell either; but, I'd put my money on a Dell or an IBM before I'd relent to giving HP anything. I've owned their product and worked on it both. No comparison.

[Yosemitest]

Lu 11:52 - Show Context

Woe unto you, lawyers! for ye have taken away the key of knowledge: ye entered not in yourselves, and them that were entering in ye hindered.

[little jeremiah]

First of all, calling homosexuals "gays" is submitting to their perversion of the English language. "Gay" used to be a useful, noble word indicating light hearted joy. Now it means sodomy.

Second, if HP is going to fire people for having quotes IN their own cubicles that might offend anyone, they're going to have to go over everyone's cubicle with a fine tooth comb and eliminate all kinds of pictures, sayings, and so on that people individualize their work spaces with. And I sincerely doubt they are doing that.

The article specifically noted that they guy's quotes were IN his cubicle. I'm sure there are sayings, pictures etc in other peoples' cubicles that offended him, or other people.

I guess the next step is firing people who have thoughts in their heads that might offend someone - especially if that someone is a homosexual.

[VOA]

Leviticus 20:13
If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have
committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.

(In case you aren't seen it yet, you can do powerful searches of The Bible
via the bible search link at www.gospelcom.net. Comes in really handy whenever
I encounter some allusion to scripture...or memory fails! )

The first chapter of Romans is also coming under fire in Canada as "hate speech"...
and I think the established state church of Sweden (Luthern?) is also
going to "make improvements" (CENSOR) the Romans I passage in their approved Bible.

They just can't handle the truth!

[kittymyrib]

"We must obey God rather than men." Acts 5:29. It's not always an easy thing to do if you are a true Christian instead of a poser. That's how thousands of years of martyrdom have come about...and it is definitely not over.
However, we can do the things we can now to express our faith. I do not have to buy anything from a company that fires Christians because they have witnessed to the truth of God's Word, the Word which Jesus said is unchangeable until He returns.

[little jeremiah]

He was trying to be hurtful,

I'm with holding judgement on that one until I see quotation marks around a statement. Second, I'm self employed, have been for years, precisely because I don't want to KA to PC crap.

[Khepera]

Ping