Wow, this is quite a situation. How much of a "pain-in-the-ass" would it be to separate Helen and Mark and have them work on unrelated tasks? If I were to guess, Mark is more likely to accept such an arrangement.

"now she's citing her religion as her reason for insulting him and talking shit about him" - which religion teaches their adherents to insult and talk shit about others, rather than turning the other cheek (or at least shutting up)? "In our state (US), it is illegal to discriminate on the basis of religious affiliation." - there is no US state that would call keeping your homophobic thoughts to yourself "discrimination". Talk to HR for advice in how to handle this. Do it now.

Just to understand. Could your question be rephrased as: "Can Helen get away with her disruptive behaviour by hiding behind her religion?" You admit as to being prejudiced against Mark so perhaps you should defer to someone else.

@JoeStrazzere She claims her religion teaches that, and she is not "keeping your homophobic thoughts to yourself" - quite the opposite - so that's a moot point. I will talk to HR tomorrow.

@TangoFoxtrot - her religion teaches her to insult and talk shit to others at work? Sorry, I'm not buying it. That's not a moot point, it's just BS.

@JoeStrazzere I am not saying "her religion teaches her to insult and talk shit to others at work". SHE is saying that. And because I'm from a different denomination, I don't know hers well enough to have a theological debate and win. Not that I should have to have a theological debate with an employee to get her to behave professionally.

@RaduMurzea "How much of a "pain-in-the-ass" would it be to separate Helen and Mark and have them work on unrelated tasks" - I can't do anything about their projects for the next few months, due to the current projects that need completed. They are both highly specialized so no one can replace either of them on the current projects.

You are being discriminatory to Mark, despite your companies policies. You're allowing him to be bullied by a co-worker, the type of bullying that the average gay person will be scared of it escalating to physical assault. By using the phrase "lifestyle choice" it's clear you have a strong implicit, if not explicit, bias against gay people. By not doing anything you're at the point where _you're_personally going to be impacted - you're the manager . You're meant to have dealt with this already.

If Helen claimed that her religion makes her to behead Mark, would you worry about Helen's religious freedom? It is the same issue, only that leading to a lesser aggression. That is not Helen being religious, it is Helen being a bigot.

@TangoFoxtrot - " I am not saying "her religion teaches her to insult and talk shit to others at work". SHE is saying that." If she actually said that, she is full of it, and you are being played.

I would be worried. If Helen gets away with it for too long you will lose mark. Who would be her next victim?

@SJuan76 Beheading is illegal. It's murder. We are talking about comparatively minor discrimination, here. Please don't make over-the-top comparisons in order to push your agenda.

Insulting and harassing other people is also illegal, regardless of your agenda and views about homosexuality. Would you be ok with Helen using the N-word towards black employees (again, because of her "religious freedom")?

@SJuan76 "Insulting and harassing other people is also illegal" - No, it's absolutely not. In the US, it's speech, and speech is protected (freedom of speech). And I would not be OK with that, but using the N-word is legal, which is my point. My point is not that it's OK or good, but that it's legal.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harassment#United_States Get HR to take care of this in a professional way.

@TangoFoxtrot - you should be careful here. You have very limited knowledge of labor law and could be exposing your company to a lawsuit. see: oclaborlaw.com/labor5.pdf Seek professional HR help or this could end badly for you.

Just one little thing: homosexuallity is as much as a lifestyle as heterosexuality, or as having blue eyes. Also, "she's citing her religion as her reason for insulting him and talking shit about him": this sounds to me like a very poor excuse, and Helen's behaviour should be threaten like ever other case of bullying.

@JoeStrazzere Your document literally says "Harassment is illegal only if it is based on some protected characteristic of the employee, such as his or her age, race, national origin, sex, religion or disability." and sexual orientation is NOT a protected characteristic in my state. Thus, Helen's harassment of Mark is legal. (Not OK, not good, but legal.)

@TangoFoxtrot - (except for state government, except for some localities, etc) . Don't try to interpret labor law yourself. Too many gotchas, too many exceptions. Leave it to the professionals.

"which religion teaches their adherents to insult .. homosexuals" The list is long. (In many cases they go straight to killing, etc, rather than insulting.) By all means your point ("you can't talk shit to someone at the office") is of course correct, but your rhetorical question, per se, is near-bizarre! given the abundance of extreme anti-female, anti-homosexual, anti- this-and-that religions on the planet currently.

@TangoFoxtrot - I think you have a very simplistic understanding of "freedom of speech" - even in the US harassment and libel are both illegal - therefore placing (reasonable) limits on free speech.

As everyone has said, "freedom of speech" is irrelevant here. You can't yell fire in a theater; you can't even simply badmouth someone under "freedom of speech", you'll get sued for slander. "freedom of speech" is irrelevant here. BOTH Helen and Mark have knock-down winning cases here.

Yes, using the N-word is legal, in the sense that neither Congress nor your state legislature may make a law banning it. But since you're not considering calling the police and having someone arrested, I don't see how that's relevant. Someone can certainly be fired for using the N-word in the workplace. "Of course our leftist HR is going to take Mark's side" -- I certainly hope so.

@KeithThompson Kind of depressing that basic inalienable human rights and essential decency are sometimes treated as a partisan issue.

I personally think Mississippi's backwards/crazy laws will be struck down by the Supreme court eventually. However, that's contingent on the makeup of the supreme court's not changing due to more appointments before our current president can be ousted.

@DevNull What "human rights" have been violated here?

@TangoFoxtrot The right to personal dignity comes to mind

In any case, Helen should be fired. Even if she does shape up, having bigots in your company is a great way to get sued and or drowned in a media firestorm. Unrelenting bigots, even more so. Make use of that prized at will employment and find a less reprehensible replacement for helen.

Also, in any case, your workplace needs a changing and more clear policies on this. The entire case you're describing is a hostile workplace lawsuit waiting to happen.

@TangoFoxtrot Legally speaking, this topic is very controversial in the US and has not been fully defined at a national level. Regardless of which action you chose, either of your employees could file a lawsuit and it could very likely make it all the way to the Supreme Court.

@DavidK Sorry, I have to disagree. There is absolutely no controversy surrounding a claimed "right" to insult and shit-talk co-workers. While anyone can file a lawsuit, there is absolutely zero chance that Helen's supposed "religious freedom to talk shit" claim gets anywhere near the Supreme Court. Not going to happen. If you are not in the US, you may be confusing issues here.

@JoeStrazzere I do live in the US, and there are many places in the US where it would be perfectly legal to be fired, refused a job, or refused service because one is gay. Perhaps workplace harassment is not exactly the same, but in many places the OP could fire Mark instead of Helen and face no legal problems currently.

@DavidK You are partially correct - workplace harassment is not at all the same. Sorry, your claim regarding a "controversy" and the Supreme Court makes no sense. You are conflating issues.

@JoeStrazzere As a non-us person, this sounds like the guy helen is targeting has a hostile workplace claim at the very least. And she may be in for some criminal charges if the harassment is really bad. IIRC, it doesn't need to be a protected class to be illegal to literally trash talk someone into mental health problems at work.

@Magisch There's no evidence that this rises to the level of lawsuits or mental health issues. It's a simple management issue. If the OP can't handle it, HR must be brought in.

@JoeStrazzere Are you sure about that? So far OP has been taking Helen's side in all this and stated multiple times themselves that they too are bigoted against gay people. Do you really trust the "fair" asessment from OP on that? In other words, if even the bigoted manager thinks helen is taking it too far, just how far has she been taking it?

@Magisch We can imagine anything we like. I go by what was actually written.

Why is HR supposedly being "leftist" even relevant? If Mark is such a good employee, is it even a problem that HR will protect him from Helen?

@Magisch You must have missed the part of the OP where I wrote "Mark is a good employee with strong work ethic and integrity. That's all that matters to me as his manager" and the comment where I referred to Mark as a good employee. I have nothing against Mark. I'm not taking Helen's side at all, if I were I wouldn't even have posted here. Helen's behavior is completely unprofessional, as I wrote in the OP.

@DavidK Thanks for your comment. As @JoeStrazzere says, something I learned only today from HR, that harassment is a different issue from discrimination. So even if it's legal to discriminate against gay employees, which it is in my state, harassment is still not legal. That is interesting, and it changes my read of the situation.

@BSMP Helen is also a good employee, outside of this. Taking Mark's side over hers is a leftist move, even if it's the right one in this case.

@TangoFoxtrot Still doesn't explain how it's relevant but I accept that's the only answer I'm going to get on that.

"Of course our leftist HR is going to take Mark's side" lolwut? So someone should be allowed to bully people out of the company? You do realize that Mark has to get up, go to work, every single day, only to be bullied by Helen, and have his manager (you) shrug and allow it?

Of all the idiotic nonsense hand-wave uses of "leftist bias" I've seen, this is quite possibly the most idiotic. Congratulations.

I see all the leftists are getting triggered by my statement. All I'm saying is that our HR has a clear leftist bias, so they are going to take the side of the homosexual and opposite the Christian. It happens to be the right position in this case. But it won't always be.