Apparently, what a preacher says from the
pulpit on Sunday could get him/her fired from their public sector job on
Monday. That was the case for
bi-vocational pastor Eric Walsh.
Dr. Walsh, a renowned public health expert
who also serves as a Seventh Day Adventist lay minister, has filed a federal
law-suit against the Georgia Department of Public Health (GDPH) alleging he was
terminated for delivering sermons on issues ranging from homosexuality to
evolution. “No one in this country
should be fired from their job for something that was said in a church or from
a pulpit during a sermon,” said First Liberty attorney Jeremy Dys. [First Liberty is one of the nation’s largest
law firms defending religious liberty, and is representing Walsh.] They contend that GDPH assigned workers to
investigate sermons Dr. Walsh delivered on health, marriage, sexuality, world
religions, science and creationism. He
also preached on what the Bible says about homosexuality. “He was fired for something he said in a
sermon,” Dys told Todd Starnes. “If the
government is allowed to fire someone over what he said in his sermons, they
can come after any of us for our beliefs on anything.” [First Liberty has accused the government
agency of religious discrimination and retaliation.]
“I don’t believe I did anything wrong,” Dr.
Walsh told Starnes in an exclusive interview. “This has been very painful for me. I really am a strong believer in the
Constitution. But now I feel like maybe
all these ideals and values that I was raised to believe — the ideals the
country was founded upon — no longer exist.”
First Liberty said Walsh was hired as a
district health director on May 7, 2014. A few days later, GDPH officers and other
government workers began investigating his religious activities. “DPH officers and other employees spent hours
reviewing these and other of Dr. Walsh’s sermons and other public addresses
available online, analyzing and taking notes on his religious beliefs and
viewpoints on social, cultural and other matters of public concern as expressed
in the sermons and other public addresses,” the lawsuit states.
The behavior of GDPH was so egregious that
its own counsel twice warned them on May 15 that “under federal law Dr. Walsh’s
religious beliefs could play no role in any employment decision by DPH.” But on May 16, the GDPH announced it had
rescinded the job offer that Dr. Walsh had already accepted. “Today’s action by the department follows a
thorough examination of Dr. Walsh’s credentials and background as well as
consultation with the six local boards of health which comprise the district,”
spokesman Ryan Deal said in a news release.
And the GDPH wasn’t the only organization
concerned about the pastor’s sermons. The
Georgia Voice reported that the Health Initiative, an Atlanta-based group
committed to LGBT health issues, strongly opposed Welsh’s hiring. “Dr. Walsh’s public displays of anti-gay
propaganda and religious rhetoric will become symbols of the department and
will further isolate an already vulnerable population. We believe this hire is detrimental to the
well-being of our community, as well as to the effectiveness of the Department
to conduct meaningful outreach to LGBT Georgians,” Executive Director Ellis
told the publication.
Based on documents First Liberty obtained
through a Freedom of Information Act request, it is clear there was some
internal concerns about how Dr. Walsh had been treated. In spite of GDPH’s internal ‘witch hunt’
against Dr. Walsh, at least one unnamed staffer wrote a memo warning that the
entire controversy had been blown “impossibly out of proportion.” “Not only is there no smoking gun, there is
every reason to believe, even from his detractors own words, that he is the
excellent health director we believed he would be,” the staffer wrote. “If we do not hire this applicant on the
basis of the evidence of job performance and disqualify him on the basis of
discrimination by those who seek to advance their own agenda and do him harm, I
believe we are no better than they are,” the staffer concluded. The unnamed staffer’s concerns were ignored
and Dr. Walsh was terminated.
In recent days, the state of Georgia has
become a battleground over religious liberty.
Governor Nathan Deal, a Republican, vetoed legislation that would have
provided protection for pastors and other faith-based organizations from
attacks by LGBT activists. The veto was
levied under fierce pressure from big business bullies like Disney and
Coca-Cola.
“Any law a state passes that helps protect
religious liberty — especially a law that allows pastors the right to preach
and not lose their jobs — is a law we would certainly apply in this case,” Dys
said.
First, they silenced the sheep — and now they
are trying to silence the shepherds.
Rev. Dr.
Kenneth L. Beale, Jr.
Chaplain
(Colonel-Ret), U.S. Army
Pastor,
Ft. Snelling Memorial Chapel
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