Atlanta Fire Chief - fired for being Christian.

[oxmixmudd]

I am sorry for going off topic as well Sparko. I did not mean to be part of the silly derail to your thread. Hopefully Cochran wins his case. He should at the very least get his job back. I also don't like the fad this has started. Where people are getting fired for things they do while they are not on company time. This seems like a serious violation.

Indeed. That is a serious violation of basic rights as guaranteed under the constitution. If Liberties groups can defend the rights of the KKK to express their beliefs, if white supremicists have the right to say what they will on their private time but retain their jobs, if Strip joints have a right to be down the street from family neighborhoods due to the right to 'free speach', If anti-American hate speach from Extremist groups has a right to be proclaimed - and more to the point - if LGBT individuals have the right to hold and publically express any belief they have about the morality of any sexual act without fear of retribution at their workplaces - then Cochran has the right to hold and publically express any belief HE has about the morality of any sexual act without fear of retribution at HIS workplace.

IT is not a matter of whether one likes or agrees with his views. It is a matter of the fact that this specific act (his firing) violates not 1 but 2 basic guarantees of the constitution:

1) the right to free speach
2) the right to the free exercise of one's religious faith


Jim

[Terraceth]

Was there really any pressing need to bump a nearly 2-year-old thread?

[Teallaura]

Was there really any pressing need to bump a nearly 2-year-old thread?

It's fun?

[rogue06]

Was there really any pressing need to bump a nearly 2-year-old thread?

Some folks don't realize it's an old thread when they come across it.



Others find one of these that I leave about in random places and can't wait to use them

Zombie Thread 2.jpg

[JimL]

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2015/...ristian-faith/

Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed announced Tuesday that Cochran had been fired. The announcement came on the same day Cochran was supposed to return to work following a 30-day suspension.

“The LGBT members of our community have a right to be able to express their views and convictions about sexuality and deserve to be respected for their position without hate or discrimination,” Cochran told me in an exclusive interview. “But Christians also have a right to express our belief regarding our faith and be respected for our position without hate and without discrimination. In the United States, no one should be vilified, hated or discriminated against for expressing their beliefs.”

Cochran had been suspended in November because of a passage he wrote about homosexuality in a book titled, “Who Told You That You Were Naked?” The book’s theme is about biblical morality.

“This is about judgment,” Mayor Reed said during a Tuesday press conference. “This is not about religious freedom. This is not about free speech. Judgment is the basis of the problem.”

Last November the mayor posted a public condemnation of the fire chief on his official Facebook page.

“I profoundly disagree with and am deeply disturbed by the sentiments expressed in the paperback regarding the LGBT community,” the mayor wrote. “I will not tolerate discrimination of any kind within my administration.”

...

“I want to be clear that the material in Chief Cochran’s book is not representative of my personal beliefs, and is inconsistent with the Administration’s work to make Atlanta a more welcoming city for all of her citizens -- regardless of their sexual orientation, gender, race and religious beliefs,” Mayor Reed wrote.

So what in the world did Cochran write that was so offensive to the mayor and the LGBT community?

According to the GA Voice, a publication that covers the LGBT community, there were two items that caused concern:

“Uncleanness – whatever is opposite of purity; including sodomy, homosexuality, lesbianism, pederasty, bestiality, all other forms of sexual perversion.”

“Naked men refuse to give in, so they pursue sexual fulfillment through multiple partners, with the opposite sex, the same sex, and sex outside of marriage and many other vile, vulgar and inappropriate ways which defile their body – temple and dishonor God.”

Cochran said he referenced homosexuality on less than a half a page in the 160-page book.

“I did not single out homosexuality,” he said. ‘I simply spoke to sex being created by God for pro-creation and He intended it to be between a man and a woman in holy matrimony – and that any other sex outside of that is sin.”

This book was something he wrote for church and was not something Cochran was espousing at work as some sort of policy. So he was fired because of expressing his religious beliefs.

If that is the whole story then his firing was wrong and the chief overstepped his authority. This is a free country, the man can believe and write whatever he wants. Somehow I feel there may be more to it than that, but if not, then what Boxing Pythagoras said. Its a violation of his constitutional right to free speech.

[oxmixmudd]

Was there really any pressing need to bump a nearly 2-year-old thread?

It was, after all, Halloween. Raising the dead seemed appropriate.

Nothing like a good haunting on Halloween

[Sparko]

If that is the whole story then his firing was wrong and the chief overstepped his authority. This is a free country, the man can believe and write whatever he wants. Somehow I feel there may be more to it than that, but if not, then what Boxing Pythagoras said. Its a violation of his constitutional right to free speech.

Is the world ending already? JimL agrees with us?

Thanks. It is appreciated. From what I have read since, yes that was the whole thing, but I will check to see if there have been any updates and report back.

[Sparko]

The most recent news I could find is from March of 2016, saying that Cochran is suing for wrongful-firing in Federal court. These cases can take a couple of years or more, so we might not know anything for a while unless they settle.

http://www.mrctv.org/blog/former-fir...g-city-atlanta

[Teallaura]

If that is the whole story then his firing was wrong and the chief overstepped his authority. This is a free country, the man can believe and write whatever he wants. Somehow I feel there may be more to it than that, but if not, then what Boxing Pythagoras said. Its a violation of his constitutional right to free speech.

Been a while!