We have been discussing the increasing monitoring and punishment of public employees for statements made during their personal time, including speech normally protected as free speech. The latest example of this trend is Dr. Eric Walsh, a public health expert who also serves as a lay minister. Walsh was fired for sermons on issues ranging from homosexuality to evolution. He has now filled a lawsuit and could prove important in exploring the protection for public employees with regard to political and religious speech outside of work. There remains an uncertain line as to the right of public employees to engage in free speech outside of work that may be offensive or insulting to particular groups or faiths. As a general rule, free speech demands bright-line rules to avoid the chilling effects that come with such uncertainty.
According to a press release, “Dr. Eric Walsh has multiple advanced degrees who served on President Obama’s Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDs.” He position was to be the District Health Director for Northwest Georgia, a position that could presumably be fulfilled without the expression or application of his religious views as a lay minister.
A Seventh Day Adventist lay minister, Walsh spoke freely on issues like health, homosexuality, marriage, sexuality, world religions, science and creationism. That allegedly did not sit well with the Georgia Department of Public Health, which has made no comment on the lawsuit.
The investigation of Walsh’s sermons followed his hiring as a district health director on May 7, 2014. A few days later, DPH officers and other government workers opened up an investigation into his sermons and views. On May 16, the DPH announced it had rescinded the job offer. It said that the “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.”
Obviously, it is important to hear the side of the state as to why Walsh was viewed as unacceptable based on such sermons. However, it seems to me that holding anti-homosexual views alone should not be a barrier for a minister so long as he complies with state guidelines and policies in the performance of his duties. That is clearly not the view of the Health Initiative, an Atlanta-based group supporting LGBT health issues. The organization’s direction insisted that “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 wellbeing of our community, as well as to the effectiveness of the Department to conduct meaningful outreach to LGBT Georgians.”
The countervailing concern however concerns the increasing scrutiny for public employees, particularly due to social media posting. We have previously seen teachers (here, here, England, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here), here, here, students (here and here) and other public employees (here and here and here) fired for their private speech or conduct, including school employees fired for posing in magazines (here), appearing on television shows in bikinis (here), or having a prior career in the adult entertainment industry (here).
The concerns are acute in this case due to the exercise of free speech on core religious values and beliefs. Just as I would be equally concerned about the firing of a minister for espousing LGBT rights and values, the question is when a person’s moral views can or should be grounds for termination. We need to see the answer of the Department to see if Walsh’s general religious view of homosexuality was the driving force behind the action or whether there were other questions raised over his qualifications. For the moment, there are legitimate questions raised by the action and deserve to be answered.
What do you think?
Source: FOX
Nick; What is a STAT? Why would you need psych testing for all pilots? Why not just for the plane pilots? I thought Faux News meant Fox News. Around here we handle lame horses pretty much like lame mules. And one more question. Is chrissake kind of like cheese cake? Or does it have to do with Chris Matthews on tv?
I think anyone still using the incredibly lame “Faux News” should be handled like lame horses are. Come up w/ something at least a little original for chrissake.
And, we need psych testing for all pilots. STAT!
barrister, Need to work on those run-on sentences. Read some Hemingway.
Nick: Hemingway probably put his brains through the ceiling for his editors forcing him to write simple sentences.
There’s nothing ungrammatical in writing run-on sentences unless, for example, commas are added where they’re not appropriate (see, e.g., the three commas in the initial draft of the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution), and many times they’re more appropriate in terms of fluidity than starting a new sentence with a conjunction no less! For example: “And, we need psych testing for all pilots.”
The moral of the story is this: there’s no good writing; there’s only good re-writing.
But what do I know.
I like Randyjet’s comment above. I concur with that. I do not know much about religious oriented gay haters. But if they hate some one because of their gender choice or whatnot without knowing the person personally it is sort of like the Klan haters. And, I hate the Klan so don’t hire me in some public job. And I do not like hookers who charge old guys more than they charge young guys.
It’s PC crap like this termination is why I’m supporting Trump.
Trump support Roger Stone is on Infowars radio/Tv show in just a few minutes.
http://www.infowars.com/watch-alex-jones-show/
It is wrong to believe anything FAUX news says. They try and say he was fired, but in reality, the job offer was not offered. That makes a BIG difference since we have no record of how he performed his job, despite his publicly held and offered beliefs. It makes perfect sense not to hire a man who has a well publicized hatred or bias against the people he is supposed to help. This is in no way a free speech case any more than it would be if a STATE agency refused to hire a KKK member for a personnel job in the state government. We are not talking about a lab technician, or street sweeper,but a major policy supervising job which means that this person will be affecting the lives and well being of people he proudly proclaims are less than good citizens. It is delusional to think he should have such a post, unless of course, you wish to endorse and put HIS RELIGIOUS beliefs onto the rest of us who do NOT share his religion. He could either not comment publicly or be free to say whatever he wants apart from government. Simple.
Had this been a private business that terminated Dr. Walsh’s employment, I wouldn’t have cared. It’s none of my business. This is a tax payer funded organization that survives by the theft of other peoples’ labor. Moral superiority is negated by their means of income.
Did he encourage people to randomly shoot into a gay pride parade? Was he inciting violence? Was that determined from the confiscated sermons?
A perfect example of separation in my book. What is the government doing in our religious lives, inside a church no less. What’s next, submit your surmonds in advance like the military chaplains had to do? What ever happened to that rule. I can’t remember.
I truly believe if the government’s continues in this path, history says there will be an uprising. Freedoms lost are hard to regain. Heck, Putin has Russia in a more religious light than our present government(s).
This lefty believes that if it – some restraint on speech outside the workplace – is not in an express, clear, and concise provision in a written contract (as opposed to an employer policy guideline of some sort, thrown at the employee after being hired) to which the employee agrees, then the employee, whether private or public, should be able to say whatever he wants outside of the workplace.
“On May 16, the DPH announced it had rescinded the job offer.” Pretty sloppy to do the investigation only after making the job offer, but according to that he was not “fired.” I think the state’s case can be made by pointing to the county clerk who refused to issue marriage licenses to same sex couples. The state simply says that it does not want to get embroiled in this kind of nonsense.
The State demands diversity and tolerance for the official viewpoints.
All others must be destroyed.
In case you are wondering what this is all about, the leftists are working on Year Zero and the New Soviet man.
Again.
This always ends badly.
The First Amendment can not be violated by a state or a “state actor” because the 14th Amendment (passed during the Reconstruction Era by Framers of those three Amendments following the Civil War) is applicable to the states and the state actors. So interpose some words in the First Amendment about Congress shall make no laws.. and you have the relevant text to consider. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
Did the action by the state and the state actors prohibit the free exercise of religion here? Yes.
Why? Because the free exercise of religion is the right to preach. He was not preaching at work. He was not preaching the gospel on television and directing it to employees of the state or to other state workers. He was at his congregation.
Is his religion and his religious belief repugnant to the fair employment or treatment of gay people? Probably. But there is no example of him doing that in the course of his work.
Should a state hire some wacko preacher who hates gays to take control of a state agency with a responsibility to be fair to all people? Probably not.
The state needs to be fair and balanced in defending itself her. The dork who hates bent people should be a preacher. Remember the adage: Those who can: do. Those who can’t do: preach. Those who can’t preach: preach to teachers.
Sounds reasonable enough. Except don’t presume just because he is religious he is a “wacko” and cannot treat all people fairly.
I am extremely wary of the “state” investigating what people say or do in their private life and then deciding if they are fit for some job. We will either end up with some political favorite or, more likely, some vanilla character.
Normally I would say who cares but legislatures in the South and elsewhere are pushing through laws that will allow public officials to act on their relgious beleifs when doling out services or interpreting how laws are enforced. Once relgious fanatics decide that relgious beleifs can be incorporated into a public officials’s job they open the doors for an discussion of an individual’s relgious beleifs and how they would intersect with their job functions. Don’t blame the liberals for this one blame the theocrats!
Though a Southerner (Ga., Tenn., Ky.), I am not a coreligionist to those who are Fundamentalists or Evangelicals. However, I see a complete lack of respect for the beliefs of religious Christians by those purporting to be the educated, liberal elite. Try substituting “Muslim” or some other minority de jour for religious people who happen to be Christians and who actually believe in their religion.
It is not 1964 and you are not talking about Freedom Riders coming in to compel the equal treatment of Blacks that should have already been in place pursuant to the law. Instead the liberal elite who regard religious people, or religious Christians, as stupid are compelling folks to equate the color of skin to a person’s sexual orientation. Did it ever occur to those in the elite that some people may genuinely find this morally and ethically offensive as well as contrary to their faith? Why does a practicing Southern Baptist have to agree that with whom a person chooses to have sexual relations is exactly the same as a person’s skin color? Apparently because the educated, brilliant and perfect liberal elite want it so as part of their effort to stamp out Christianity.
What is going to happen when the Fashionable Left bumps up against a Muslim community in the US? Maybe their heads will explode as part of trying to decide to whom they should pander the most.
Welcome to the new America of the Fascist Liberals! A few years ago in a neighboring county an elected official was discovered making improper arrangements (endorsements) with LGBT groups. The county rushed out a written policy on how what county officials did in their private political lives was their own biz. A few months later that same official “turned in” a political rival for the manner in which they made criticism of Obama on a personal FB page. Claimed it was racist. The same county then held a special meeting to reprimand the “offender”. (How dare she criticize Obama on a FB page, and forget that 1st Amendment stuff!)
This politically correct, fascist left stuff happens all the time. It’s just that the average person has not the financial means to initiate litigation, on top of the damage to their professional lives. It’s almost reminiscent of the days when accusations of being “a Commie” could inflict personal or professional damage. There is a complete unwillingness to recognize how even criticizing absurdities like those who claim the existence of several dozen gender identities can result in the speaker or writer being brutally punished.
Don’t believe anything from Fox News.
If they can’t show his actual behavior as a health expert was affected negatively by his preaching, I’d say they should gtfo.
A few years back, I am certain we could find people who would think a health expert should not be a communist, or maybe black, Irish, or Jewish.
Can he do the job?
I think he has a solid case against the state on religious freedom grounds.
I think JT needs to take on this case.
Curt Schilling was just fired by ESPN for posting a picture of a tranny and being sarcastic. The main reason Trump is so popular is because people are FED UP W/ PC and the dying 1st Amendment. Every time crap like this happens, the buffonish Trump gets more voters.
Hmmm. Would you be just as upset if a state had an executive position advocating for LGBT but rejected him because of his sermons etc.? Leadership positions (Director) carry a great deal more than just an ability to do the job. I don’t agree with their action but don’t see it as a civil rights (free speech) case. Reputations at that level inherently carry an additional burden.