Finally, a federal appellate court has said it: Bigots who cloak themselves in the Bible and intentionally create a hostile workplace for others are not entitled to sue for workplace bias when their employers fire them.

Two years ago, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held that gender bias laws apply to gays and lesbians in the workplace. That’s because gays and lesbians are discriminated against — they don’t conform to traditional “gender stereotypes”.

The message has gotten through to employers. Even in Idaho, Hewlett-Packard decided to include “gay” diversity within its diversity program.

At its Boise office, HP began to display “diversity posters”. One poster featured an HP employee. Under his mug was the word “Gay”. Other posters included similar depictions of HP employees, including words like “Black,” “Blonde,” “Old” or “Hispanic”. By the way, federal law so far does not protect bias against blondes.

Under each poster was the term “Diversity is our Strength”.

Richard Peterson had been an HP employee for 21 years. He describes himself as a “devout Christian”, who believes that homosexual activities violate the commandments in the Bible and that he has a duty to “expose evil when confronted with sin”.

On the back of Peterson’s car, which he parked in the HP parking lot, was a bumper sticker reading, “Sodomy is not a Family Value”. (Yes, this is true).

In response to the “gay” posters, Peterson erected signs atop the overhead bin in his work cubicle. The signs were large enough so that HP employees, customers and others could see them.

One of the two postings was from Leviticus (20:13) and read:

As a result of complaints from co-workers, HP supervisors removed Peterson’s scriptures.

The HP anti-bias policy states that comments are unacceptable if they fail to respect the dignity and feelings of individuals.

Peterson admitted that his statements were, indeed, designed to be hurtful. “And the reason they were intended to be hurtful is you cannot have correction unless people are faced with truth,” he said.

Peterson hoped that his gay and lesbian co-workers would read the passages, repent, and be saved.

That didn’t happen.

Instead, they found Peterson’s conduct to be scary and hostile.

Peterson insisted on keeping his passages atop his cubicle. He would only remove them if HP altered its diversity program and got rid of the “gay” posters.

HP refused. When Peterson insisted on putting up the messages, HP fired him.

Peterson sued claiming that he, as a Christian, was being subject to religious discrimination and/or HP must accommodate his views.

The court quickly dismissed his first claim that HP had singled him out for bias. The court noted that federal law requires employers to prevent a hostile workplace for all employees and that all employees, of every religious stripe, are subject to the anti-bias policy.

Then Peterson argued that HP had a duty to accommodate his religious views.

Federal law requires employers to accommodate such practices unless it would produce undue hardship.

Peterson contended that HP was required to allow him to keep up his posted messages, or to drop “gay” inclusion in its diversity program.

The three-judge panel correctly found that either choice would have inhibited HP’s efforts to attract and retain a qualified, diverse workforce, which the company reasonably viewed as vital to its commercial success.

The court found that employers have to tolerate some employee discomfort when taking efforts to “correct the wrongs of discrimination”. However, it need not accept the burdens that would result from allowing actions that demean or degrade, or are designed to demean or degrade members of its workforce.

Religious conservatives have to face the fact that the Bible condemns folks to death for things like masturbation, premarital sex, adultery and working on the Sabbath. If every Bible-thumper could hide behind federal law to spew dogma at “sinners” in the workplace, every workplace would turn into a living “hell” for everyone.