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This is part of a series of articles by Wright Lindsey Jennings’ labor and employment team examining key trends for employers and the workplace in 2026, authored by attorney Stuart Jackson. The series was originally featured in Arkansas Business.
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects employees from discrimination based on their gender (which the U.S. Supreme Court held includes gender identity and sexual orientation) and on their sincerely held religious beliefs.
Title VII also requires a covered employer to reasonably accommodate an employee’s sincerely held religious beliefs in a way that is not an “undue hardship on the conduct of the employer’s business.”
But what happens when the interests of one protected group collide with the interests of another?
Given the emphasis in the last few years from the courts and the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) on protecting religious rights, along with a recent shift by the EEOC away from pursuing LGBTQ-related claims, businesses may find themselves faced with a treacherous balancing act in a couple of situations:
- Employees objecting (based on their religious beliefs) to anti-harassment training that includes references to sexual orientation/gender identity.
- Employees being disciplined for statements or social media posts that are critical of LGBTQ rights.
An example of the first issue played out in an EEOC ruling from 2024. In Barrett v. Vilsack, an employee of the U.S. Department of Agriculture claimed harassment training that included a discussion of protections for LGBTQ individuals contradicted his sincerely held religious beliefs. He asked to be excused from the LGBTQ portion of the harassment training as a reasonable accommodation.
The “objectionable” portion of the training only discussed current federal law prohibitions against gender identity and sexual orientation discrimination and “information on how to treat all customers and employees with respect.” The training did not attempt to “pressure [the employee] to change his religious observance or practice.” The EEOC found that the training did not violate Title VII, and that excusing the employee from the LGBTQ portion of the training would have imposed an undue hardship. “Title VII requires employers to take steps to prevent discriminatory harassment” (such as conducting anti-harassment training) and failing to properly train employees exposes employers to liability.
The lesson is that anti-harassment training that covers all federally-recognized protected categories is permissible. Just don’t take the training too far by attempting to modify a person’s religious beliefs.
Insights on how to approach the second treacherous situation (discipline for comments/social media posts of a religious nature) are seen in at least two recent cases. The EEOC recently sued a Wisconsin event venue for terminating an employee who frequently posted Bible verses and faith-based messages on his personal social media account. Those messages made no mention of his coworkers or his employer, but his supervisor told him to stop posting them.
EEOC Chair Andrea Lucas chimed in on the lawsuit, stating, “While employers must remain alert to potential harassment in the workplace, religious statements made outside of work that do not reference or impact anyone in the workplace do not constitute unlawful harassment.”
Some important legal context: the harassment laws are not meant to protect against every stressful situation or indignity that a person might encounter at work. As the Supreme Court put it, Title VII is not a “general civility code.” Petty slights, minor annoyances, and isolated incidents (unless extremely serious) are not actionable “harassment.” Instead, the employment laws are aimed at harassment that is so pervasive or severe that it significantly impacts a person’s work environment. The employee’s social media posts did not impact his colleagues or the workplace; therefore, they were protected from a religious standpoint and outside the scope of actionable harassment.
Another example was discussed in Naylor v. County of Muscatine, Iowa, a case in front of the U.S. Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals (the circuit in which Arkansas is located). Naylor was the jail administrator for Muscatine County; he was responsible for monitoring the safety of the jail detainees and supervising the jail staff.
The sheriff became aware of a treatise Naylor posted online entitled “The Church and the End Time,” which discussed his post-tribulation religious beliefs. Naylor also had posted various YouTube videos. Included in those postings was a statement that the “gay lifestyle … is an abomination that according to the scripture even defiles the land [and] has caused great harm on our nation.” That and other comments aimed at Muslims led county officials to express concern for the civil liberties of jail detainees who might be gay or Muslim.
The county ultimately fired Naylor for his comments, saying his employment was “contrary to the good order and discipline at the jail” and that he lacked “credibility to function effectively in a management role.” Naylor sued, alleging the county violated Title VII by firing him for his religious posts.
A federal district court in Iowa dismissed the claim, reasoning that the county could not reasonably accommodate Naylor’s online commentary. But the court only considered two types of undue hardship the county might encounter: that the negative publicity surrounding the statements had harmed the county’s reputation and that retaining Naylor would imperil its contracts with other government entities to house overflow detainees in its jail.
The court did not consider evidence of potential discriminatory treatment against gay or Muslim detainees or the risk of an increased number of lawsuits due to allegations of discrimination based on Naylor’s comments.
On appeal, the Eighth Circuit seemed a bit perplexed by the lower court’s narrow focus and reversed, stating on the record that genuine issues of material fact existed on the undue hardship issue and that dismissal was not appropriate at that stage of the proceedings.
However, the Eighth Circuit left open the door for the district court to dismiss the case again, hinting about other possible undue hardships the district court might consider, such as religious expression constituting “unlawful harassment … where it is facially abusive (i.e., demeans people of other religions) or where the [religious] expression could be mistaken as the employer’s message, particularly in the instance of government employers.”
The Bottom Line
When dealing with employee comments or social media posts of a religious nature, religious expression clearly is protected. But only to the extent that expression does not significantly impact the work environment (harassment) or the operations of the employer.
When religious expression comes close to or crosses the line, employers should wrap their heads around the facts of the situation — context always matters — and address it properly without knee-jerk reactions.