Hacker News Reader

Comment by happymellon | Hacker News Reader

I really don't want to hear about your religion, and I don't want to see your Jesus Loves You gifs posted to the all tech Slack channel.

View on HN

Sure, but that sort of behaviour is plainly abusive unless you're actually working in an explicitly religious setting.

But merely saying "I'm taking next Wednesday off to celebrate Eid" ought to be fine everywhere, as is "this weekend I'm singing in my church choir then going for a picnic".

Similarly, wearing a wedding ring or mentioning that you have a partner should never be a problem, but issuing a company-wide invite to your next sex party likely will be.

"Personal" isn't a synonym for "intimate". It's reasonable to assume that people are able to share the former without forcing their colleagues to deal unnecessarily with the latter.

Both Merriam-webster and thesaurus.com have intimate as a synonym for persaonl. Thesaurus.com says its one of the strongest.

I get that.

One persons level of comfort is not the same as others, so just saying I want people to be comfortable having their religious opinions respected is not a simple request.

Some religious opinions are basically oppression of others. I refuse to allow people to be bigots in my presence regardless of their reasoning.

Having previously been a member of such a religion, and having left it specifically over human rights issues, I am delighted to inform you that there are many individuals who identify as members of such religions but who are not personally bigoted, and who in fact may privately be uncomfortable about that aspect of their religious belief. If you already know someone, and you have reason to believe they're not bigoted, but then they out themselves as a member of some such group, you don't have to assume the worst.

Unfortunately I am going to have to disagree.

Also as someone who was a member of church which had anti-christian ideals, pointing out the hypocrisy can be the only way for them to question what they are in. Doing and saying nothing helps no one.

There's a large middle ground between saying nothing in the face of bigotry and proceeding immediately from "oh you're a member of <group>?" to an itemized list of hypocrisies, without stopping to find out what the individual person in front of you actually thinks about said hypocrisies. All I'm advocating for is that last: talk to people like they're people, not like they're mindless members of <group>.

This says a lot more about you than them.

It says a similar amount about both of us.

As a Catholic I agree with the parent. "Street preaching" never works and bothers people. There are better ways to evangelize.

Work environments are professional environments.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com