Thanks to the enterprising employees at Brookstone, that odd chain that sells expensive gadgets for tasks that aren’t that important anyway, Ethics Alarms now encounters what has all the signs  of a genuine Ethics Train Wreck. Ethics Train Wrecks are situations where one unethical act sets off a chain reaction of bad judgment and rash behavior, and by the time all the carnage is over, anyone who was near the event, and those who tried to make sense out of it or clean it up, end up looking bad and arguing with each other. Recent Ethics Train Wrecks include the Valerie Plame affair and the Prof. Gates arrest. President Obama won’t get involved in this one (I hope!), but it has it all: gender, religion, workplace relations, law, Fox News.

Peter Vidala is a devout Christian and proud of it. He was a deputy manager at Boston’s Logan Airport Brookstone’s and a manager from another Brookstone was visiting his store. Vidala says that she knew he was a Christian, and also was aware that his particular brand disapproved of homosexuality.  She engaged him in a conversation, mentioning four times, according to Vidala, that she had married her female partner. “I found it offensive that she repeatedly brought it up,” Vidala told  reporters. “By the fourth time she mentioned it, I felt God wanted me to express how I felt about the matter, so I did. But my tone was downright apologetic. I said, ‘Regarding your homosexuality, I think that’s bad stuff.'”

The woman responded by saying, “Human resources, buddy!  Keep your opinions to yourself!” and left. Two days later, Peter was terminated by the store, which sent him a letter citing its zero-tolerance policy regarding “harassment” and “inappropriate and unprofessional” comments.  “While you are entitled to your own beliefs,” the letter read, “imposing them upon others in the workplace is not acceptable and in this case, by telling a colleague that she is deviant and immoral, constitutes discrimination and harassment.”

Now Vidala is giving interviews about the incident to conservative media outlets (no non-conservative source has paid any attention to the story), and it is starting to build some steam. He seems to be angling to be the next Carrie Prejean (the Miss Universe contestant who became a celebrity for the Right after she was trapped into stating her disapproval of gay marriage on national TV), perhaps because his job hunting isn’t going so well. He was dismissed in August.

As in all Ethics Train wrecks, everyone is at fault:

The alleged victim: It does sound like she was trying to goad Vidala by repeatedly mentioning her same-sex marriage.  He says she knew he was a conservative Christian and knew his feelings about homosexuality. If this is true, she was harassing him, and deliberately enticing him into a dispute. Even if she was not, it is mean-spirited to take one remark in a single encounter and elevate it into an administrative complaint. Moreover, she didn’t even work at the store. Her claim of a hostile work environment in a workplace she was only visiting for the day is ludicrous.

Vidala: Telling a co-worker that you find her legal, state-sanctioned and harmless life-style objectionable crosses many ethical lines. It is, in fact, not his place to express his opinion. If he felt she was goading him, he should have focused on that, saying, “You know I’m not comfortable with this topic, and I’d like you to stop discussing your personal life, unless you are soliciting my honest reaction to it. Are you?” Her same-sex union is not workplace conduct, and is not eligible for a workplace confrontation. If Vidala and the woman were friends, confidantes, even close colleagues, his comment might have been arguably within bounds. To her, it was presumptuous, insulting  and rude.

Brookstone: It sounds like Vidala, who had only been on the job a couple weeks, may have been terminated as the lesser of two hassles for Brookstone: if you have to take sides in a scrap between a gay woman and a religious man in Massachusetts, it’s an easy call: go pink. But Brookstone didn’t have to pick sides: this wasn’t harassment. Legally, its letter is full of beans: one comment without any slurs, to a visiting employee who doesn’t even work at the same store? This isn’t harassment under any rational interpretation. It isn’t “pervasive;” it isn’t even from a superior to a subordinate or between colleagues. She was a manager, he was an assistant manager. Subordinate to supervisor harassment is theoretically possible, but it is truly in the “man bites dog” class. The remedy prescribed in all the literature is to tell the harasser not to do it again, not to say, “Aha! Now you’ve done it, and I can get you fired!”

To summarize: the “victim” had a chip on her shoulder; the “harasser” was full of himself, with all the tact of Joe Wilson; the employer was craven, rigid and unfair: and the conservative media is determined to make a case of bad HR work look like persecution of the faithful. Is this a “teachable moment,” as our President likes to say?

Sure:

• If you are gay and in a same-sex marriage, be happy, be proud, but don’t gleefully rub it in the faces of people whose religion embraces the attitudes of the 12th Century. Especially in the workplace. It’s irresponsible, unfair and unkind. You have no more right to be disrespectful of their world view than they have to denigrate yours. And intentionally setting a trap for someone to get himself fired is just wrong, no matter how much you dislike them or their beliefs.

• If you object to the lifestyle of someone you work with, keep your opinion to yourself, unless you’re asked for it. This does not apply if your colleague is running a dog-fighting ring or trafficking in child prostitutes. But being in a gay marriage is not remotely like these things. If you don’t understand that, you shouldn’t live in Boston. Also wake up and smell the court cases: saying that you are anti-gay is little different from saying you are anti-black. It’s bigotry, and you can tell the Old Testament I said so. Saying that you are anti-gay to a gay person is as disrespectful and uncivil as it is stupid. You can still think what you want. That doesn’t hurt anyone, except possibly you.

• If you are an employer, stop making decisions based on political correctness or fear of angering interest groups, be fair to all parties, don’t fire someone in a recession when a good reprimand will suffice and oh yes: learn the laws.

• Conservative networks, blogs and other news media: an employee who has only been on the job a couple of weeks who insults a supervisor is going to get fired 90% of the time, whether he is a Christian, a Jew, an Agnostic,  or a Shar pei. Not every sour employment situation involving a Christian is proof of a conspiracy against God.

Let’s hope Peter finds a job soon, and that Fox et al. find another martyr. The only way to limit the damage of Ethics Train Wrecks is to clear the tracks.