I work for a religious organization. My boss likes to take the 4 members of his group out to lunch for our birthdays. Three out of four of the group are female.

I work for a religious organization. My boss likes to take the 4 members of his group out to lunch for our birthdays. Three out of four of the group are female. Due to the environment, he takes the 3 women out as a group on each birthday (we love it) to keep up appearances. On one side, I don't see it as a way of being respectful of everyone involved (everyone is married, and we're all professionally friendly). On the other side, it is sad that it takes that much effort to uphold an image of propriety. I have heard of inappropriate office romances that have happened and started with instances like this (seemingly harmless but rolled into something more).