Employee Rights, Religion In The Workplace, Sexual Harassment...

[ShotgunSteven]

Does anyone know anything about an individual's rights as they pertain to religion and it's interference in the workplace? I am just curious due to some things that have happened at my workplace in the past. My boss used to leave in the middle of work to go to church (See some of his views here) services on Wednesday nights, though that stopped for reasons unknown to me. He would come back and stay an equivalent amount of time to what he was gone beyond the end of his normal time at work. Sometimes they would have special speakers at his church, and he would do that for a week or two at a time. Again, hasn't happened in a while, and I don't know if he was told he couldn't do it anymore by HIS boss, or if he decided he no longer wanted to.

We had a temp working for us and he was a Suni(SP?) Muslim. He and my boss did not get along very well. 😛 He stopped work a couple of times a day to disappear and go pray, and left work to go to his temple or whatever. Didn't stay late to compensate, and eventually was told he could no longer go.

He was a wanna-be polygamist, married to a woman in the military, and hitting on another temp worker we had trying to get her to marry him so he wouldn't have to work himself, having two women to support him. :roll: I am curious how something like this would have played out if she had actually filed harassment charges against him, with him claiming he was just practicing his religious beliefs.

She was later hired on permanently if I recall correctly, and he got canned for making long distance calls at work.

 

[GasX]

Freedom of Religion ends the moment you start interacting inappropriately with other people.

You want to set-up a temple in your basement and sacrifice chickens to Grog - lord of the underworld - fine

You want to sexually harass women at work and claim God told you to do it - NOT fine.

 

[ShotgunSteven]

Originally posted by: Mwilding
Freedom of Religion ends the moment you start interacting inappropriately with other people.

You want to set-up a temple in your basement and sacrifice chickens to Grog - lord of the underworld - fine

You want to sexually harass women at work and claim God told you to do it - NOT fine.

That is about what I figured.

 

[Biggerhammer]

Your churchgoing boss, who compensated for the time he took out, is prety much where I would be I think. I don't hand out tracts or tell people that they should attend my church- my freedom of religion is not license to annoy people.

When a job told me that I had to work Sunday mornings, I explained that I had stated when they hired me that I needed that time off. When they disagreed, I moved on. I suppose I could have done The American Thing and sued for religious discrimination but why bother?

 

[ShotgunSteven]

Originally posted by: Biggerhammer
Your churchgoing boss, who compensated for the time he took out, is prety much where I would be I think. I don't hand out tracts or tell people that they should attend my church- my freedom of religion is not license to annoy people.

When a job told me that I had to work Sunday mornings, I explained that I had stated when they hired me that I needed that time off. When they disagreed, I moved on. I suppose I could have done The American Thing and sued for religious discrimination but why bother?

Actually he used to proselytize quite a bit at work, though not so much of late. He is more subtle now, and tries to present it as scientific discussion, as per the link in my first post.

 

[GasX]

Originally posted by: Biggerhammer
I suppose I could have done The American Thing and sued for religious discrimination but why bother?

Because you probably would have lost...