Minneapolis, USA - Christmas ornaments from colleagues and even the occasional prayer meeting at work were tolerable for Sandra Levander, who is Jewish, while she worked as a hospice volunteer coordinator at HealthPartners Inc.
But things got ugly in late 2003 around the release time of "The Passion of the Christ," the Mel Gibson movie about the crucifixion of Jesus, Levander said in a discrimination lawsuit filed this month in U.S. District Court in Minneapolis.
"A relentless campaign of harassment" began, Levander said, with co-workers making comments such as, "The only good Jew is a dead Jew," and applying pressure to convert to Christianity "to save your soul."
Levander's lawsuit alleges that her appeals to supervisors for help did no good and that ultimately she was fired.
HealthPartners said it never comments on pending litigation. But its policies include a commitment to "foster and support an inclusive environment that appreciates, respects and values differences" that benefits both its employees and its patients, said Donna Zimmerman, head of the company's cross-cultural care and service initiative.
The facts in this case might play out in court, because Levander has requested a jury trial. Meanwhile, it is one more sign that religion is a big deal in U.S. workplaces these days.
Religion-based complaints to the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission have nearly doubled in the past 10 years.
A bill now before Congress, the Workplace Religious Freedom Act of 2005, is the latest attempt to define a balance between everyone's right to speak their minds, on one hand, with everyone's right not to have to listen, on the other.
The law now defers mostly to employers' judgments about how much to limit religious expression.
The bill before Congress will raise the bar, requiring them to accommodate religious expression in speech, in clothing and in prayer breaks, for example, unless to do so would be a hardship on the company.
Opinions on the bill take an unusual split. Supporters include church groups, Hillary Clinton and John Kerry. Opponents include the Chamber of Commerce and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
Some attribute all the fuss to the growing diversity in U.S. workplaces.
Others say there have always been plenty of divisions -- Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Sikhs and even secularists -- expressing every permutation of prejudice over the years.
What's different, they say, is the growing visibility that people now want to give their faith, even at their jobs.
And attorneys, politicians and civil rights advocates all agree that how Americans figure out mutual respect day in and day out at work will have more effect on contemporary society than any courthouse display of the Ten Commandments or morning prayer at school.
"These come up daily and people can't get away from them because they have to work, they need their job," said Marie Failinger, a professor at the Hamline University School of Law and editor of the Journal of Law and Religion.
Court cases involving Muslims are getting a lot of attention, but complaints still cover a spectrum of faiths, Failinger said.
One issue involves accommodating religious practices, such as daily prayers for Muslims, she said.
"But a lot of discrimination is still comments," Failinger said: Co-workers calling Muslims "terrorists," or employers announcing that their non-Christian employees will go to hell.
Problems frequently follow some trigger, she said, like a terrorist attack somewhere, or the loss of a loved one in Iraq. Or, possibly, a powerful movie.
What's acceptable is not a complete fog.
Courts all the way up to the Supreme Court have defined some standards, said Thomas Berg, a professor at the University of St. Thomas School of Law who has researched and written about religious speech in the workplace.
Free speech generally wins out until it reaches the level of a "hostile work environment," Berg said. The hostility has to be substantial enough to interfere with an employee's work. Threats and humiliation cross that line, he said. On the other hand, it's not asking too much to expect employees to just look away if they're offended by a sloganeering button on a colleague's shirt.
Pushing opinions is bad, Berg said.
"We all have a common-sense notion when somebody says, 'Don't talk to me about this,' two or three times and you continue, you're engaging in harassment," he said.
As for the bill before Congress, the ACLU is concerned that under the bill's terms "the religious beliefs of one person will trump the ability of an employer to run a company," said Charles Samuelson, director of the Minnesota ACLU.
For example, it would allow an antiabortion police officer to refuse to protect an abortion clinic, or a prochoice officer to arrest every clinic picketer, Samuelson speculated. A social worker could make Bible readings part of her casework, or an employee assistance program counselor could refuse to assist a gay couple, he said.
Berg disagrees.
"It's my sense that when employees refuse to do a certain kind of job that the employer directs, the employer would have the right to sanction them," he said.
If any kind of problem over religion comes up, Failinger recommends mediation as the best way not only to solve an issue but to build mutual understanding. Hamline has 40-hour mediation training that even a small employer can afford to attend or send one employee, she said.
Another helpful resource is online, "An Employer's Guide to Religious Accommodation." It's on the website of the Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund, but it generalizes to all religions. It's at www.saldef.org/attachments/Employers_Guide.pdf.