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Atlanta Ousts Fire Chief Who Has Antigay Views

As fire chief, Cochran crossed the line when he handed out the book to subordinates at work. His religious view - especially as a chief - are not to be imposed on the people who report to him. He was wrong to hand out religious material at work. NO CAN DO.

I have no truck with someone in his position writing the book or any book. He has a right to do that. If, however, he presents his views and his book publicly in uniform at his church or other churches or groups he is in essence representing the city. If he hands out religious books at work or while in uniform he is representing the city. The City of Atlanta does not have any official religion.

Further, the issue is a human resource matter and at this point the details are probably not yet available. At this point the mayor would likely be under legal advisement to discuss the matter in general terms. That is standard procedure.

Just curious. Are you saying he should have been prohibited from handing out copies of a book he wrote to anyone who works for or with the Fire Department...period? You say "he handed them out at work and in uniform". How do you know he did it while in uniform and at work? That hasn't been reported anywhere.

Yes, he could have given it to them in the parking lot while wearing jeans. Or in the supermarket. Or at church.
 
Can someone point out in the many links on this story from all media outlets where exactly this man was:

Forcing religion on anyone?
Advocating points of view while on the clock?
Discriminating as the fire chief against anyone?

I'm all for gay rights but I can't see anywhere in this link or others that he did something that warranted him being fired. I have employees who work for me. From everything I read he only gave less than 5 copies of this book to co-workers, and it doesn't say he gave them to anyone while he was "on the clock" and it also says he gave them to these people who are people with whom he has a relationship based on Christianity.

I disagree with this man's message, but this is a violation of his First Amendment rights as far as I can see, and it certainly doesn't warrant his job termination. Sorry.

He is EMPLOYED by the CITY of Atlanta. He DISTRIBUTED the book AT WORK to people HE SUPERVISES. You cannot do that.

"I am wired in even nationally. I am devoutly religious. I equate homosexuality with goat ****ing and baby raping. It is wrong according to my interpretation of my religion. I am handing a book to you, at work, while I am here as your ultimate supervisor."

Religion can be a contentious subject as this thread clearly demonstrates. Cochran has NO BUSINESS knowing the religions or particular religious practices or religious interpretations of his employees. Cochran has NO BUSINESS knowing about the sexual orientation of his employees or of the family members of employees, and he has NO BUSINESS TO ASSUME that he does. He can believe all he wants and, as far as I am concerned, write all he wants as long as it is not connected in anyway to his work - which, if so, would then effect directly or indirectly people (he wouldn't know whether or which as it is not related to his job) who work for him. As I understand his position, all fire people in the city are (were) ultimately his employees - which he supervised on behalf of the citizens of Atlanta. Not everyone in Atlanta is a hard core bible believing Christian.

How's that?
 
Re: Atlanta Fire Chief: I was fired because of my Christian faith

Anti-Christian books that the state employee wrote himself, and handed out to only a few people who he knew or believed shared the same views as he did? Why would that be a bad thing?

Doesn't matter - religious proselytizing doesn't belong in a government workplace. Period. Separation of church and state, y'know? And if he only handed it out to "only a few people who he knew or believed shared the same views as he did", how, then did it find its way into the public eye?

As I said above to NP, this wasn't a PC thing - it's a leadership thing. Those who work for someone need to know that particular someone is fair, firm, and impartial - they need to know they can trust him. But by that leader's own words, he puts the LGBT lifestyle down there with pederasty and bestiality.

And if you don't think that a leader's words matter, look what happened in Russia and in several African nations after the leaders came out claiming how evil and terrible LGBT's are. It's all about the leader. That's why Napoleon said, "There are no bad regiments, only bad colonels."
 
Re: Atlanta Fire Chief: I was fired because of my Christian faith

Anti-Christian books that the state employee wrote himself, and handed out to only a few people who he knew or believed shared the same views as he did? Why would that be a bad thing?

Wait, it matters how many people he handed them out to?
 
As fire chief, Cochran crossed the line when he handed out the book to subordinates at work. His religious view - especially as a chief - are not to be imposed on the people who report to him. He was wrong to hand out religious material at work. NO CAN DO.

I have no truck with someone in his position writing the book or any book. He has a right to do that. If, however, he presents his views and his book publicly in uniform at his church or other churches or groups he is in essence representing the city. If he hands out religious books at work or while in uniform he is representing the city. The City of Atlanta does not have any official religion.

Further, the issue is a human resource matter and at this point the details are probably not yet available. At this point the mayor would likely be under legal advisement to discuss the matter in general terms. That is standard procedure.

Did he really need to be fired over this though? A man who has risen to the ranks of Captain in the fire department should lose his career and have his life destroyed because of something like this? I don't think that is right. I think it is excessive and unfair.

Note how it is intolerant, extremist liberals who want to destroy this man for his beliefs.
 
He is EMPLOYED by the CITY of Atlanta. He DISTRIBUTED the book AT WORK to people HE SUPERVISES. You cannot do that.

"I am wired in even nationally. I am devoutly religious. I equate homosexuality with goat ****ing and baby raping. It is wrong according to my interpretation of my religion. I am handing a book to you, at work, while I am here as your ultimate supervisor."

Religion can be a contentious subject as this thread clearly demonstrates. Cochran has NO BUSINESS knowing the religions or particular religious practices or religious interpretations of his employees. Cochran has NO BUSINESS knowing about the sexual orientation of his employees or of the family members of employees, and he has NO BUSINESS TO ASSUME that he does. He can believe all he wants and, as far as I am concerned, write all he wants as long as it is not connected in anyway to his work - which, if so, would then effect directly or indirectly people (he wouldn't know whether or which as it is not related to his job) who work for him. As I understand his position, all fire people in the city are (were) ultimately his employees - which he supervised on behalf of the citizens of Atlanta. Not everyone in Atlanta is a hard core bible believing Christian.

How's that?

What on Earth is with the hostile post and the shouting?

And where did he say he had any "business knowing about the sexual orientation of his employees or their family members"? Are you making things up now?

And you say he has "no business knowing the religions of his employees". Sorry but there is no law that prohibits his employees from making their religious beliefs known to him or attending the same church as their supervisor. And if you read about this story (which apparently you didn't) you will see that he gave that book to less than 5 people whose religious beliefs were the same as his. And he also gave a copy to the mayor a year ago, and the mayor said he would read it.

I think you people should read a little more about the story before jumping on the high horses.
 
Re: Atlanta Fire Chief: I was fired because of my Christian faith

Anti-Christian books that the state employee wrote himself, and handed out to only a few people who he knew or believed shared the same views as he did? Why would that be a bad thing?

A supervisor giving religious books to subordinates makes a hostile work enviroment for the people who dont agree with his views and shows favoritism to the ones who do.
 
He is EMPLOYED by the CITY of Atlanta. He DISTRIBUTED the book AT WORK to people HE SUPERVISES. You cannot do that.

"I am wired in even nationally. I am devoutly religious. I equate homosexuality with goat ****ing and baby raping. It is wrong according to my interpretation of my religion. I am handing a book to you, at work, while I am here as your ultimate supervisor."

Religion can be a contentious subject as this thread clearly demonstrates. Cochran has NO BUSINESS knowing the religions or particular religious practices or religious interpretations of his employees. Cochran has NO BUSINESS knowing about the sexual orientation of his employees or of the family members of employees, and he has NO BUSINESS TO ASSUME that he does. He can believe all he wants and, as far as I am concerned, write all he wants as long as it is not connected in anyway to his work - which, if so, would then effect directly or indirectly people (he wouldn't know whether or which as it is not related to his job) who work for him. As I understand his position, all fire people in the city are (were) ultimately his employees - which he supervised on behalf of the citizens of Atlanta. Not everyone in Atlanta is a hard core bible believing Christian.

How's that?
This is so obvious

It baffles me that people can't see the issue here
 
Re: Atlanta Fire Chief: I was fired because of my Christian faith

The other thread on this is at ten pages.
 
Of course there is. Almost nothing in the Constitution prohibits private persons from discriminating against anyone, for any reason. A member of the Ku Klux Klan, for example, has a perfect right to hate the guts of every black or Jew on earth, wish them all dead, and tell his feelings to anyone who will listen. Nor can any law require him to date one of those persons, or invite them to his dinner parties. Despite what some people who never learned basic civics might want to believe, there is no "Rainbows and Unicorns" clause in the Constitution. If that mean fact gives some collectivist dim bulbs in this country a big owie and makes them feel all icky, that's just too damned bad. Individual liberty includes the right to detest and condemn certain people and actions, and to say so.

Unless this fire chief was somehow coercing employees to accept his booklets, I don't see how what he did amounted to unconstitutional state endorsement of a particular religious belief. Nothing says any American has to approve of homosexual behavior. Many millions of people consider it immoral and unacceptable, often on religious grounds. It sounds to me like the local homosexuals screeched loudly and angrily enough to intimidate this mayor into knuckling under to them. Wait until organizations that support incest, or polygamy, or bestiality are shrieking and calling for some official's head because he dared to bruise their precious feelings by calling their sexual practices immoral. A free country is not for the thin-skinned.

"A free country is not for the thin-skinned."
I agree. The excessively politically correct are exactly that, the thin skinned that are doing little more than looking to be offended to take advantage of, and leverage, their protected class status to punish those with whom they disagree.

In order to maintain free speech for everyone, you have to have enough wherewithal to ignore the free speech that you don't like, and this is where all this excessive politically over-correct fail.

Of course the Chief should be allowed to hand out his book )off work hours), the same way that those he offers it to have the freedom to decline to accept it, and the same way that there better not be any repercussions for either accepting or declining to take the book.

"Wait until organizations that support incest, or polygamy, or bestiality are shrieking and calling for some official's head because he dared to bruise their precious feelings by calling their sexual practices immoral."
I figure it can't be far off now. Seems like it's just around the corner, before even Obama is out of office. I'd add NAMBLA to that list as well.

I should have clarified: The workplace has no constitutional rights. If you can't keep your discriminatory comments to yourself your boss can fire you at any time. A member of the KKK can hate anyone he wants, true, but the minute he passes out a pamphlet at work he can be fired. The chief represents the government to his subordinates and has no right or moral ground to spew his religious non-sense on anyone under his authority.

"The workplace has no constitutional rights."
I disagree with this.

"your boss can fire you at any time"
True, as most states in the nation have an 'at will' employment policy. You work there at your will, and at the boss' will. Either can terminate employment at a moment's notice. It's not related to constitutional rights, as far as I understand.

If you start handing out materials, any materials, that the boss doesn't want handed out, he can ask you to stop. If you don't, he can fire you for not following direction. Not because you are handing out stuff, and especially not that you might discriminate against someone else. Have to actually have done it before you can be fired for that.
 
Just curious. Are you saying he should have been prohibited from handing out copies of a book he wrote to anyone who works for or with the Fire Department...period? You say "he handed them out at work and in uniform". How do you know he did it while in uniform and at work? That hasn't been reported anywhere.

Yes, he could have given it to them in the parking lot while wearing jeans. Or in the supermarket. Or at church.

If he distributed the book in a place and manner that was no way connected to his job, in a venue that did not require or imply compulsory attendance by any employee, I don't have a problem with that. If he did not speak publicly even in church(es) about his book or religion while in uniform, I don't have a problem with that.
 
That's not accurate. Firemen do not waive their constitutional freedoms of speech or religion when they arrive at work, any more than teachers do. And government employees usually cannot be fired as easily as private ones. I'm sure instructors at state and community colleges all over the U.S. regularly express views at work that many people would find repugnant. Apparently the state of Colorado did not violate anyone's constitutional rights by employing a professor at Boulder who, right after 9/11, disgustingly implied that the poor souls murdered at the World Trade Center deserved just what they got. He called them "little Eichmanns," comparing them to the Nazi war criminal.

What anyone thinks of the fire chief's morality or religious beliefs makes no difference. The issue is whether he, acting in effect as the state, coerced any person into endorsing the views contained in the booklets so far as to violate any right the Constitution guarantees, through the Fourteenth Amendment, against state infringement. I don't see where the booklet called for discrimination against homosexuals. It just expressed the religious view that homosexual acts are vulgar and undesirable. Millions of Americans believe the same.

Dam! Beat me to it!
 
Re: Atlanta Fire Chief: I was fired because of my Christian faith

Doesn't matter - religious proselytizing doesn't belong in a government workplace. Period. Separation of church and state, y'know? And if he only handed it out to "only a few people who he knew or believed shared the same views as he did", how, then did it find its way into the public eye?

As I said above to NP, this wasn't a PC thing - it's a leadership thing. Those who work for someone need to know that particular someone is fair, firm, and impartial - they need to know they can trust him. But by that leader's own words, he puts the LGBT lifestyle down there with pederasty and bestiality.

And if you don't think that a leader's words matter, look what happened in Russia and in several African nations after the leaders came out claiming how evil and terrible LGBT's are. It's all about the leader. That's why Napoleon said, "There are no bad regiments, only bad colonels."

Wait - you're asking how it "found its way into the public eye"? You didn't read this link or any of the many others on this story. It's all right in there.

Let me know when you read it and then we can discuss.
 
Yes, books can discriminate. More to the point power and authority can discriminate and Cochran's alleged behavior represents an abuse of authority.

I think you are giving a mere book far too much power than it actually deserves.

verb (used without object), discriminated, discriminating. 1. to make a distinction in favor of or against a person or thing on the basis of the group, class, or category to which the person or thing belongs rather than according to actual merit; show partiality: The new law discriminates against foreigners. He discriminates in favor of his relatives.


2. to note or observe a difference; distinguish accurately: to discriminate between things.


verb (used with object), discriminated, discriminating. 3. to make or constitute a distinction in or between; differentiate: a mark that discriminates the original from the copy.


4. to note or distinguish as different: He can discriminate minute variations in tone.


adjective 5. marked by discrimination; making or evidencing nice distinctions: discriminate people; discriminate judgments.
Discriminate | Define Discriminate at Dictionary.com


Inanimate objects that can do verbs? Really? No, I'm not thinking so.
 
Re: Atlanta Fire Chief: I was fired because of my Christian faith

Fox News once again spins the story to fit their agenda of victimization. Not only did the Fire Chief in question hand this book out to his employees, the book itself equated homosexuality to pederasty and bestiality. Are you okay with a public official publishing and handing out a book with clear hateful remarks about a group of people? Either way, I won't lose any sleep over this guy.

Nothing wrong with what he said, Homosexuality is an evil perversion , on the same level as the others that he also mentioned. And whether you agree with this or not, he has as much right to say so as the sickest of perverts have to say otherwise.
 
Re: Atlanta Fire Chief: I was fired because of my Christian faith

A supervisor giving religious books to subordinates makes a hostile work enviroment for the people who dont agree with his views and shows favoritism to the ones who do.

He belongs to a church that publicly expresses anti-gay sentiment. I wonder why that didn't make the work environment hostile.
 
Re: Atlanta Fire Chief: I was fired because of my Christian faith

What does that have to do with what I posted?

Because you mentioned a number of people in your post. "Only a few."

The number of times he did it doesn't matter. Who he did it to doesn't matter. He's a supervisor and a public servant, it's not appropriate.
 
If he distributed the book in a place and manner that was no way connected to his job, in a venue that did not require or imply compulsory attendance by any employee, I don't have a problem with that. If he did not speak publicly even in church(es) about his book or religion while in uniform, I don't have a problem with that.

Of course you wouldn't have a problem with it if he spoke publicly in church about his book while not in uniform. I have no idea what that meant. And unless someone can demonstrate that he forced his book and/or religion on his subordinates against their will while in uniform, or can show that he in any way discriminated against people in that department, I can't support the idea of terminating him even though I personally find what he said reprehensible.
 
Re: Atlanta Fire Chief: I was fired because of my Christian faith

Problem is, NP, that he wrote (according to your reference):

“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.”


So this means that if there's an LGBT firefighter working underneath him, that firefighter would know that his boss thinks that he or she - as an LGBT - is right down there with pederasty, bestiality, et al. And you would know down deep in your gut what that means for your chances for advancement..

If there was a fire chief who was a homosexual pervert, would you agree that having such a leader would similarly impose a hostile environment on any underlings who happened to adhere to any kind of moral standards, to the degree that their discomfort would constitute a legitimate reason for firing that leader?
 
Re: Atlanta Fire Chief: I was fired because of my Christian faith

Because you mentioned a number of people in your post. "Only a few."

The number of times he did it doesn't matter. Who he did it to doesn't matter. He's a supervisor and a public servant, it's not appropriate.

You focused on the wrong part of my post, but that's okay. We disagree.
 
Re: Atlanta Fire Chief: I was fired because of my Christian faith

He belongs to a church that publicly expresses anti-gay sentiment. I wonder why that didn't make the work environment hostile.

If he talked about what his church says to subordinates then it would but if not then what he does outside of work is no ones business. Handing the books out to subordinates is the issue I have with the whole thing.
 
Re: Atlanta Fire Chief: I was fired because of my Christian faith

If he talked about what his church says to subordinates then it would but if not then what he does outside of work is no ones business. Handing the books out to subordinates is the issue I have with the whole thing.

Can you show me where it says that he was handing out these books to subordinates while they were at work?
 
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