Supreme Court Rejects Test Case of Workplace Religious Harassment

"If you want to proselytize at work, and the boss doesn't like it, go get another job."

The same should apply is the 'boss' does like it, and certain employees object. They should live with the bosses tolerances, or go get another job, not make a plea to the courts of some type of 'harassment'.

If there are no owners' rights(freedoms); then, one is not really a owner(free), are they? Government controlled businesses, under a false pretense of private ownership, is, I believe, fascist.

The appeals court said he should have known that a Muslim would not want a copy of the Bible and that it was not prudent to initiate prayer sessions at work with colleagues.

I once had a Muslim employee. For my birthday he gave me an English translation of the Q'uran. Inside was an inscription complimenting me as a boss.

Now, on the one hand I was his boss so there could be no implied pressure for me to accept his beliefs. But on the other hand, I saw the book as a gift. He believed very strongly in his religion and wanted to share it with me. When you get right down to it, that is an honor and I took it as such. I still have the Q'uran.

When I get a cold lots of people suggest I take vitamin-C or suck Zinc losenges. They suggest these things because they care about my physical health. I don't take the vitamins but I really appreciate their show of concern. People who disagree with Christianity also care about my spiritual health. I accept that with the same mindset.

Muslims should learn to be tolerant in the same way. I suspect they already know how to be tolerant. It's just the press, lawyers, and judges who don't.

Shalom.

#17
Frankly, I don't think we know enough about this case .when I worked, I used to have discussions with co-workers about Religion and one time another one made me rethink the situation . ahe asked if PROLONGED discussion of Religion on company time might be stealing from our employer.After thinking about it, I realized that break or lunch time was OK, but work time wasn't necessarily a good time for witnessing .
Praying over patients and even the machinery can't hurt and might help .
Then again, it may depend on the length of the prayers . I have had people say grace over lunch that lasted until time for dinner (slight exaggeration).
Like I say, we don't know enough about the case to have a real good answer,IMHO

Anyone of any religion trying to convert or using their religion to condemn or influence decisions at the workplace is wrong.

I think that's a foolish point of view and doesn't take into account the entire range of issues that religion covers. Suppose I am working with someone who suddenly breaks down. I ask, "What's wrong?" and they answer that their marriage is in a shambles. Would I be OK if I offered my secular marriage counselor as a good person for them to consult? How about my pastor? Why one and not the other. Either one could be a true offer to help. The offer to talk with my pastor would likely be more valuable. Or I might tell him what helps me in my marriage. If I did that, Jesus Christ would certainly come up.

Obviously, if he said he wasn't interested in religion I'd back off. But you'd have already fired me for mentioning religion to him. You would also have done him a great disservice, IMO.

Shalom.

"Is this 'harassment' or free speech?"

Actually, it's neither. My position on this is probably not very popular with those who consider themselves to be part of the mainstream in Christendom. I am one who believes that virtually every single "civil rights" law on the books is unconstitutional. The government has no right getting involved in the private affairs of how one runs his or her business. An employer, in my opinion, has the right to fire someone for any reason unless doing so violates a legal contract, written or verbal, between that employer and the employee in question. If the employer had said that witnessing would be allowed and then turned around and fired that employee, the employee would have a case. If, however, the employee was approached and warned that such behavior could result in termination and the employee continued to engage in that behavior, the employer would be well within his right to fire that person.

I'm not saying that what the employer did was right, nor am I saying that what Weiss did was wrong. Far from it. However, he seemed to know the consequences if he continued to witness to others. It's something that comes with the territory. Just ask any missionary who has spent any time at all in an unfriendly nation. There will always be those who oppose the sharing of the Gospel. I just think we tend to add to the problem by expecting the government to get involved in an issue that should between private individuals.

Hey, I told my problem employee to leave me alone and to not discuss religion with me several times, I started off being very nice about it, then I got more and more agressive in my disdain. She still did it,

Then I would suggest the problem was her behavior, not the subject matter. Or are you suggesting that she would have been OK if the subject she had been so passionate about had been "Survivor" instead of "Jesus Christ?"

If the latter, then you are definately a bigot. And, I suppose it is at least possible that she was no more obnoxious about Jesus Christ than some of my co workers are about Survivor but you all take it much harder because religion seems to make people defensive.

I'm not really accusing you personally of this. It is likely to be as bad as you say, but I would be very surprised if it didn't happen in many workplaces.

Shalom.

You appear to exhibit a well-defined balance and toleration of others with differing viewpoints.

Thank you for the kind words. I don't want to go to far with this, but one reason I am percieved as being 'balanced' as you put it is that I really care about the people I am around. People are important to me. I don't want to convert people so I can notch my belt or brag at Church, I want to introduce them to G-d so they can know the joy I know.

But if I want them to give me a fair hearing then I have to give a fair hearing to them. If I cut them off as part of a satanic cult or something then how much of the Gospel do you think they're going to listen to from my mouth?

Shalom.

It is not so much the religion, its the harassment,

Just so. However, you would need to be careful because I can say to someone, "You should have seen the Diamondbacks kill the Yankees last night," and get a polite, "I'm not really interested in baseball." in return. But I could say, "Man, you should have heard my Pastor yesterday," and get a rude, "Look, keep your religion to yourself!" People can be very defensive about religion.

Regardless of that, if you've told an employee to change and the employee hasn't changed you've already laid down the law. Just so long as it's about the harrassment, not the religion as you stated.

Shalom

Have you tried your corporate Help(less) Desk, IT services, or other company means of repairing electronic hardware? The prayer might indeed do a better job of getting results. :)

Hey now...not all Help Desk people are incompetent! I worked Help Desk for 3 years, with a very good track record. You don't last long at that job unless you know what you're doing. But I will agree that sometimes prayer seems like a viable option.

As for the real question at hand, whther or not this guy is exercising religious freedom or engaging in harrassment, I'd have to say that he is guilty at the very least of not having too good a sense of timing and of maybe being a little over-zealous. He is not on the job to promote his beliefs, he is there to work. While I believe that some people get a little too anxious to label things as harrassment, maybe in this case this guy might have crossed that line. I'm a firm believer in timing - a right time for everything - and by the results of his efforts, I'd say he missed that timing in those cases. The Bible talks about speaking a word in due season. That, to me, implies that the word thus spoken will produce positive results. Obviously that wasn't the case here.

We have become a nation of victims !
The sad thing is, you don't even realize that the one claiming victimhood status is Kenneth Weiss. He was fired for being a problem employee and went crying to the court trying to use a law only liberals should love, whining that it was his right to hold this job.

In Islamic societies I understand the solution of choice would be to shoot him in the head or cut his tongue out or something..
Our forefathers set up the Supreme Court to decide just such issues..

One Nation under God Rememeber 9/11
I remember 9/11 very well. A bunch of nuts who wanted this nation under their God murdered a few thousand people. I'm as against a Christian Taliban as I am a Muslim one.

As one that values the constitution ,and free speech.,and freedom to worship..I do not want to live in a theocracy of any sort,not a secular one,a new age one ,or an eastern religion one eithor.That seems to be the Governments religion of choice today. New Age or Secular

The supreme court needed to take this case to clarify what constitutes harassment and what is free speech ...

If I'm at work, I always wait for openings to share my faith. Openings being my own time where a co-worker has indicated an interest in hearing what I have to say. Those opportunities do occur. To press in where you're not wanted has exactly the opposite of the intended effect. Always be gracious. Always be considerate - of both your co-workers and your boss and the people who are signing your paycheck.

We have become a nation of victims

Indeed, that seems to be the case. I think we all need to grow thicker skins and quit being so sensitive to imagined insults and threats (i.e. sexual harrassment). People nowadays are so easily offended it's ridiculous! Being "offensive" is equated with being "intolerant" which is the two sides of the same coin of the "greatest sin" in American society. Stop and think about it. Jesus Christ (God incarnate) lived among sinful people whose behavior must have been quite offensive at times to Him. He didn't run around complaining, suing, or whining about how "offended" He was. If Jesus could take it, I think I can too. It's time that a lot of people GROW UP, and quit being so thin-skinned.

When I raised my hand and pointed out that it had been my experience all one has to do is to say "excuse me ,but that joke or language offends me,generally they stop it.

You are correct, and that's the best way to handle the problem, if the remedy works.

On the other hand, there are some folks who will proselytize during work hours, and won't take no for an answer, and won't respond to supervisor counseling to desist. Just like their are others who can't stop make suggestive remarks or attempting quid pro quos to get sex. Those people you fire.

I think that may be the kind of person we're reading about.

People all over FR keep talking about a Christian Taliban. Those who know anything about Christianity know there can never be any such thing. One of the fundamental tenants of Christianity, and the Judaism from which it came, is the individual's choice. The love of Jesus can not be coerced.
Of course there could be such a thing, and there have been already. Plenty of people throughout history have been tortured and killed by Christians in alliance with the government in order to coerce the victims into loving Jesus. You are confusing what is right with what is reality.

Kenneth Weiss offered a Bible to a Muslim co-worker at a Florida medical lab and called a lesbian colleague's attention to Scripture that describes homosexuality as "vile" and "unseemly." The born again Christian also "laid hands" on ill co-workers and prayed over a malfunctioning machine.
bump to the church of Jesus Christ @ FR ..Is this "harassment" or free speech

3 posted on 10/29/01 9:43 AM Mountain by RnMomof7

I follow my L-rd as He instructed me to :

Mt. 28:19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them
in [Or into; see Acts 8:16; 19:5; Rom. 6:3; 1 Cor. 1:13; 10:2
and Gal. 3:27.] the name of the Father and of the Son and of
the Holy Spirit,
Mt. 28:20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded
you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the
age.”

I'm not sure that is what Kenneth was doing.

Tehillim (Psalm) 19:14 May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart
be pleasing in your sight, O LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer.

XeniaSt

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