Posted on 01/06/2004 3:50:25 PM PST by 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
I think you have uncovered the total irony of the situation, for that is exactly what the PC, Homosexual Promoting agenda is doing, gaining constitutional protection for their deviant lifestyle. Their religion is not the act, it is the belief that they are free to act without consequence. Their religion is the religion of unbelief.
Could a private company ask you to renounce your religion as a term of continued employment?
Yep, Hewlett Packard is only for homosexuals and their supporters. Take your business to more diverse suppliers.
Anti-discrimination laws are intended to prevent that form happening. But a employer should be able to tell his employees to leave their proselytizing out of the workplace. An employee is there to get work done, not convert sinners.
It shall be an unlawful employment practice for an employer--
to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms or conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual's race, color, religion, sex, or national origin; or
to limit, segregate, or classify his employees or applicants for employment in any way which would deprive or tend to deprive any individual of employment opportunities or otherwise adversely affect his status as an employee, because of such individual's race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. 1 It shall be an unlawful employment practice for a labor organization-
to exclude or to expel from its membership, or otherwise to discriminate against, any individual because of his race, color, religion, sex, or national origin;
to limit, segregate, or classify its membership or applications for membership, or to classify or fail or refuse to refer for employment any individual, in any way which would deprive or to tend to deprive any individual of employment opportunities, or would limit such employment opportunities or otherwise adversely affect his status as an employee or as an applicant for employment, because of such individual's race, color, religion, sex, or national origin; or
to cause or attempt to cause an employer to discriminate against an individual in violation of this section. 2 The term "religion" includes all aspects of religious observance and practice, as well as belief, unless an employer demonstrates that he is unable to reasonably accommodate to an employee's or prospective employee's religious observance or practice without undue hardship on the conduct of the employer's business. 3
http://www.nrtw.org/ro1.htm
It's a private matter. Similarly, there is nothing in the constitution which would prevent a company from requiring all employees to be some weird sect.
The Constitution is a restraint on government, not on anyone else. Restraints on anyone else are the result of laws.
Whether those laws are constitutional is a different discussion.
Xerox makes their model 6200DP color laser printer which makes really nice photo quality prints. We use it to print copies of photos taken by digital cameras. Downside is that a full set of toner cartridges (black, blue, red, green) costs between $800-$1000.
Imagine a company requiring its employees to post biblical verses condemning homosexuality, an employee posting a diversity flag and imagine what Judge Reinhart would hold.
From what I read, the guy objected to a "promote diversity" poster with photos of homosexuals IN his cubicle. At any rate, the article said the guy said he'd take his quotes down if they took the "gay promotion" poster down, but no go.
The unconstitutionality I'm referring to are laws/judicial decisions forcing acceptance or normalization of homosexuality such as the law in CA mandating "gay" friendly promotion cirriculum in public schools K-12 since 2001. Just one example of many.
We have a couple of high performance network laser printers in my office serving about 20 people. One is a b/w Xerox, and the other is a color Savin/Ricoh. Both are very nice and function also as image scanners, fax machines, and the Xerox can scan whatever, convert it to a PDF file, and e-mail it within a second or two.
For personal desktop color ink jets, I like the quality and reliability of Lexmark.
If anyone wants details, features, model numbers etc, drop me a Freep mail.
I'd love to see a BIG consumer backlash against HP on their stand on this issue. Does HP support Fisting? How about ... (never mind - enough said).
You are completely mistaken. Refer to post 166. There are laws on the books addressing these points specifically.
BWAHAHA. I wonder if they thought about those kind of things before promoting man on man love as diversity.
I'm not defending what the Christian employee did; I'm questioning the concept that HP's strength is in their diversity, or more specifically that employing homosexuals somehow strengthens an electronics manufacturing company. How does being a homosexual make you a better engineer, marketeer, salesperson, assembler, etc.?
I also agree with someone up the thread, maybe you, that he'd never make this ruling if the facts had been reversed and this was a pro-homo putting up signs to disrupt the workplace.
But that's the way it is in America today. Liberal judges can make bad decisions (legally speaking) and they often get away with it. Conservative judges don't.
I don't want any bad decisions, even when the result doesn't turn out like I'd prefer. But we must remember to reverse the facts in our mind in cases like this, and then make the call. That's the only way to determine whether the ruling was correct. Stephen Reinhardt actually got one right, and I'm amazed.
Being homosexual, black, asian, female, bald, fat or bearded does not make you anything. Of the limited resources available in the career field, some are 'alternative'. To compete, HP needs to attract and maintain the best employees. Some very bright people are gay.
But the diversity programs are not limited to only to the homosexual community. There are very bright Asian, Indian, Hispanic and other engineers, technicians, programmers, and others who come from a background different than our own. The Diversity programs (Motorola, IBM, Apple, Intel, AMD, HP, Agilent, NEC, Honda, Samsung, et al) are designed to create an atmosphere in which different world views are welcome, and are not treated in a hostile or disrespectful manner.
No, it does not.
Religious discrimination by private employers is prohibited by federal statute, not the Constitution.
But it has been held that employers may forbid religious expression that is seriously disruptive to the work enviroment.
Posting a biblical death threat to co-employees is seriously disruptive.
The jerk should have been fired-I'm amazed they actually gave him several warnings and paid leave to reconsider, but some jerks never learn
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