Tag Archives: fire department

Fired Fire Chief Kelvin Cochran Wins Lawsuit Against Atlanta

Just before Christmas, a Federal district court ruled in the case of Cochran v City of Atlanta, in which Fire Chief Kelvin Cochran had claimed he was fired because he did nothing more than write a book — one that included a page with his Christian beliefs about homosexuality.

You’d be forgiven for not realizing that, given that the ruling on the three-year-old case seems to have garnered little to no press attention, despite its potentially significant impact on religious liberty.

Part of the reason for the seeming indifference may be the ruling itself. The court denied most of Cochran’s constitutional claims but found in his favor on the unconstitutionality of the City’s policies requiring “pre-clearance” before writing a book. (That apparent ambiguity may be why some outlets appear to have said the Court “sided with Atlanta,” which belies the fact Atlanta was defending and did not prevail in its defense — meaning the Court actually sided with Cochran.)

In its legal filings, the City claimed it fired Cochran Read more

Atlanta Fire Chief Kelvin Cochran Fired for Religious Views

Update: Dr. Al Mohler makes the same argument as below, saying

We are now witnessing a direct and unavoidable collision between religious liberty with what is rightly defined as erotic liberty — a liberty claimed on the basis of sexual identity and activity. Religious liberty is officially recognized in the Bill of Rights — even in the very first amendment — and the framers of the American order did not claim to have established this right to free religious expression, but to have recognized it as a pre-existent right basic to citizenship.

Erotic liberty is new on the scene, but it is central to the moral project of modernity — a project that asserts erotic liberty, which the framers never imagined, as an even more fundamental liberty than freedom of religion.

FoxNews broke the story of Atlanta Fire Chief Kelvin Cochran, who was recently fired after he wrote a book on Biblical morality for his men’s group at church — which had a half-page on homosexuality some activists found offensive.

Despite the fact only the expression of his beliefs got him fired, Atlanta council member Alex Wan — who is homosexual — said he

support[ed] Cochran’s termination and said it “sends a strong message to employees about how much we value diversity and how we adhere to a non-discriminatory environment.”

So, a person who was not discriminating against anyone was discriminated against in order to provide a non-discriminatory environment?  One wonders if councilman Wan knows what the word “discrimination” really means.

Georgia Equality, a homosexual activist group, also Read more