A coworker of mine asked advice in a group setting what to do about her husband coming out as homosexual and wanting to have sex on the side, because they had a house and four kids under 10.
Other people suggested the straight spouses of homosexuals support group.
I said that there are women who will put up with adultery to keep the family together, whether with a man or a woman, but if she did that, do disease testing and put strict limits on the money and time he does it. And if she wouldn’t tolerate him cheating on her, whether with a man or a woman, I could get her a good divorce attorney’s number.
A separate person reported my homophobic comments to HR, for which my only defense was that if the subject was unacceptable, she shouldn’t have asked it in public, and that my advice would have been a no-brainer 20 years ago.
I finally had to pull out that a woman was asking for advice on adultery, and that I was giving her the advice she requested.
The FEMALE HR rep then told me that the term “adultery” was unacceptably judgmental.
But they decided it wasn’t homophobic, since I had couched it as equally valid whether he cheated with a man or woman.
Ugh! The pretzel logic we have to endure, and pretend to take seriously, just to keep our jobs these days.
There’s a good object lesson for folks not to get drawn into a group discussion at work on such topics.
Someone may have been laying a trap for you or for the ones who would anser like you.
You also should tell the HR rep that adultery has a legal definition and your remarks were in agreement with the legal definition.
Also, to shut up or you would sue for creating a hostile workplace with her illogical badgering.
Adultery by definition is having sex with someone not your spouse. There is nothing “judgmental” about pointing that fact out. Homophobia is a word invented by the gay lobby and does not exist in reality. Phobia means fear and no one fears sodomites but rational people do find their behaviors disgusting.