A federal appeals court upheld firing of Richmond Police clerk who claimed the department discriminated against her because of her religious disapproval of homosexuality.

The Police Department had valid reasons for dismissing records clerk Loudesia Flanagan, including her mistreatment of a volunteer intern who was lesbian, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said on Monday. Any rights Flanagan had to express her Christian viewpoint at work were outweighed by the department’s need for “maintaining a discrimination- and harassment-free work environment,” the court said.

Flanagan worked for Richmond as a police records specialist from 1989 until she was fired in 2013. Her lawyers could not be reached for comment on Tuesday.

Flanagan had high job-performance ratings but also had some run-ins with supervisors and was disciplined several times over the years, according to records cited by U.S. District JudgeEdward Chen, who heard her lawsuit seeking reinstatement. On one occasion in December 2011, Chen said, she wore a Santa Claus hat on duty, refused a supervisor’s repeated orders to take it off and later accused the supervisor of harassing her.

The volunteer intern told a supervisor in March 2012 that Flanagan was not allowing her to enter secured areas of the building and reported in April 2013 that Flanagan was making her wait in the lobby or acting as if she wasn’t there, Chen said.

A colleague quoted that Flanagan said that the intern “won’t be going to heaven ... because God does not like gays.” A former co-worker said Flanagan had commented that then-Police Chief Chris Magnus, who is gay, was “cultivating a gay environment.”

The department suspended Flanagan with pay in May 2013 and fired her five months later, and said she had been discourteous and disrespectful to the intern, had falsely denied making discriminatory comments, and had created a “hostile work environment” by speaking openly about her dislike for gay people.

Her lawsuit contended the department had retaliated against her for complaining about police “corruption” under Magnus and for expressing her religious beliefs. Chen dismissed the suit in 2015, and said that Flanagan had not pointed to any instances of corruption and had been dismissed for her conduct, not her beliefs.

Upholding Chen’s ruling, the three-judge appeals court panel said on Monday that Flanagan had presented no evidence that the department’s stated reasons for firing her were a pretext for religious bias.

Flanagan is free to declare her opinions about homosexuality as a private citizen, the panel said, but her “freedom to express such views, in the particular circumstances of this case, gives way in the workplace.”

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Mrudula Duddempudi.