In 2015, the mayor of Atlanta fired the city’s much-decorated fire chief Kelvin Cochran. Why? Because the African-American firefighter had written a Bible Study in which he said that homosexuality is sinful.
Chief Cochran sued the city for wrongful termination. The case has dragged on for years, but now the city has offered a settlement, including a payment to the 30-year-veteran of $1.2 million.
Even at the time, investigators agreed that the Chief had never discriminated against anyone. They were punishing him solely for his Christian beliefs. Specifically, they charged him with promoting the book on the job–that is, giving a copy to some of his fellow firefighters–without permission.
But, as his attorney Kevin Theriot of the Alliance Defending Freedom said, “The government can’t force its employees to get its permission before they engage in free speech. It also can’t fire them for exercising that First Amendment freedom, causing them to lose both their freedom and their livelihoods.”
Here is what his book said, from Lifesite News:
Cochran is a member of Elizabeth Baptist Church, where he is a deacon and Bible study leader. On his own personal time, he wrote a study guide exhorting Christian men to faithfulness, titled, “Who Told You You Were Naked?” Cochran says he got permission from the city’s ethics director to publish it, and to include his position as fire chief in its bio.
In the book, Cochran wrote against “sexual acts pursued for purposes other than procreation and marital pleasure in holy matrimony.” Specifically, he condemned “multiple partners, with the opposite sex, same sex and sex outside of marriage and many other vile, vulgar and inappropriate ways which defile their body-temple and dishonor God.”
Elsewhere, Cochran’s book defines “uncleanness” — following Biblical teaching — as “whatever is opposite of purity; including sodomy, homosexuality, lesbianism, pederasty, bestiality, and, all other forms of sexual perversion.”
The Lifesite article has other details about the case and about Chief Cochran’s career. It quotes him soon after his firing:
“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 Fox News at the time. “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 summarized.
It appears that a legal consensus is emerging in the conflicts between anti-discrimination laws and religious liberty. A Christian may not discriminate against an LGBT individual. And yet, as the Supreme Court decision in the Masterpiece Cake case says, the expression of a Christian’s opposition to same-sex marriage or homosexuality is “protected.”
Photo: Kelvin Cochran, by Bill Koplitz (This image is from the FEMA Photo Library.) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
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