Stupid Ignorant Customers

[Indigo]

This is one of the reasons I will never work in the area I graduated hs from. Same crap you've got; it came out during hs that I was Pagan and life became hell. I managed to get the administrators involved (who preferred to look at my academic record over my religion) and they put a stop to it.

I'd have a nice long talk with the boss about the consequences of that comment at the very least. And document, document, document. It will save your buns if it comes down to losing your job and serve as a record of your attempts to solve the issue.

[Magpie]

The first thing anyone facing discrimination needs to do is think: you need to seriously evaluate the threat level these guys represent. Are they just blowhards who like to talk a lot of trash but will crumple the minute someone stands up to them, or do you truly believe that they may hurt you if you don't take action? If they're blowhards, either keep your head down and bull through it, hoping that they'll get bored and pick on someone else, or call their bluff by letting them know that if they continue the harassment you will take legal action against them. I do NOT recommend playing the "I'm a witch and I'm going to put a curse on you" bit. Nothing like playing into their irrational fears to get you in serious trouble.

While I agree that you want to avoid the "butter, meet plasma arc" solution (i.e. overkill), threats themselves can cause problems. Even if you KNOW for sure that they aren't going to harm you, the fact that they made the threat can cause anxiety. I suspect that's only with those of us who have some predisposition to it, but if the threats are causing you problems, don't let the fact that you know they wouldn't actually hurt you stop you from objecting.

That particular verse is Exodus 22:18. Too bad they didn't read a little further. Perhaps you can remind them of Exodus 22:21: "Thou shalt neither vex a stranger, nor oppress him."

Brilliant! I tend to do that sort of thing in a somewhat passive-aggressive manner, but it really is the best one. I just make sure that when I explain Christianity to others (a lot of the international students here are very open about asking questions) I am very open about where things came from, and "historic" mistakes that have been made in interpretation. Which mistakes I mention may end up being tailored based on which ones the people around me insist on saying aren't historic.