Religion at work

Tell me if I'm in the wrong here.

I'm at the office working on a few stories. We have a pretty lax work environment here, and my boss regularly makes fun of our one Republican on staff. No topic is off limits, and I've heard my co-workers talking about everything from having feet hanging out of them in childbirth to having sex while high. Whatever, usually I just put my headphones on and try to get my work done.

Today they were going on and on about Catholicism. I'm Catholic. I asked them to please stop talking about it because they were bashing my religion and I didn't need to hear that at work. The retort: "Are you fucking serious?"

I said yeah, this is a workplace environment and I don't have to listen to religious discussions here. Do that on your own time. Then the woman stormed off in a huff.

Seriously. I'm well within my rights here, right?

(Mods, if this should go in Anything Goes, I apologize.)

 

Bucknutty: You were well within your rights if they were bashing your religion.

 

I think you were well within your rights, and if you were polite in your request to stop, their response was over the line.

Newsrooms can be pretty coarse places, and I'm sure I've offended someone at some point. If asked to watch my language or whatever, there's really no other appropriate response except to comply.

 

You certainly have the right to express your objections, just like they have the right to criticize your religion.

You can argue whether it's polite or not, I suppose, but I wouldn't get too worked up over rational criticisms that don't qualify as harassment.

 

At work? No, they don't have the right to criticize someone's religion. That's harassment. Most places have a policy against it, actually.

 

Pretty simple: no religion, no politics at work, it can only cause problems.

We have a couple of hard-core Repubes/Bush backers. On election night, my boss quietly mentioned to a few of us "No celebrating, no political bullshit as the election numbers come in. Just do you job and enjoy it in silence."

 

Interesting subject.

I know our bosses are pretty tolerant of many beliefs, and I know for me, I've never had a problem.

 

No, actually, as Americans we have the right to practice religion and the right to have conversations about religion.

And certainly Bucknutty has the right to object to such a conversation.

 

That's exactly what I think.

 

/thread

 

I would have been offended and spoken up if my Catholic faith was bashed at work.

 

FDP, you're 100 percent wrong on this.

Having a WORKPLACE discussion that disparages somebody's religion is not allowed if one person objects or is uncomfortable about it. It IS harassment. It is NOT protected by the First Amendment or anything else.

It's one thing on a street corner or a bar; it's another in a workplace. It is prohibited. You can't do it any more than you would criticize somebody's race. You can debate me on this, but in a legal/civil sense, it's not debatable.

We have had four training programs about this kind of thing in the past few years, and unless my multinational, multibillion-dollar company is making things up -- which I doubt -- people are protected from hearing this if they don't want to.