Posted on 10/16/2018 5:54:05 PM PDT by madprof98
The City of Atlanta, Georgia has agreed to pay former fire chief Kelvin Cochran, $1.2 million after a Federal District Court ruled in December 2017 that the city's policies which led to Cochran's termination were unconstitutional.
[I]n 2015 . . . the City of Atlanta fired him because he wrote a men's devotional book in his spare time – a book that briefly mentions his views on a biblical understanding of marriage and sexuality.
As CBN News reported, the city did not approve of Chief Cochran's book. After a 30-day suspension without pay, in order to complete "sensitivity training," and an investigation into his conduct (which showed he had never discriminated against anyone in the fire department), his career came to an end in Atlanta.
This led Cochran to embark on a three-year legal battle that he says was never just about him.
"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," said ADF Senior Counsel Kevin Theriot in a press release. "We are very pleased that the city is compensating Chief Cochran as it should, and we hope this will serve as a deterrent to any government that would trample upon the constitutionally protected freedoms of its public servants."
(Excerpt) Read more at 1.cbn.com ...
You would think this would slow down persecution of Christians. But it won’t.
He wrote the book in his spare time.
It doesn’t make sense that they can fire him for that.
It’s good that he won.
Nice. The politicians get to virtue-signal, the Chief gets a windfall, and the Atlanta taxpayers pay the bill, which they love doing. Everyone wins in Democrat-land!
Good for him!
GA FReeper ping.
This guy got a raw deal, glad to see this result.
No, it won’t slow it down. The AJC has a new article out, doubling down on the “inflammatory book” (a Sunday School tract, really) and hammering home what an affront to “diversity” it is. Written by a rich white guy, no doubt, though probably a gay one.
Awesome
Tell that to those of us who worked in MI. I had to sign a non-publishing without consent agreement, and a no travel without approval agreement. The penalty was very severe.
Of course I could have refused to sign. My transfer to Thule, Greenland was sitting next to the agreement.
Great for the Fire Chief>>>
Suxs for us taxpayers!!!!
Need to put this bill on the account of Atlanta’s X-Mayor Kasim Reed.
Good for nothing corrupt turkey.
The fine should be taken out of the politicians salerys and pensions of any.
That's what I was trying to figure out. But I finally got it, it was not because he wrote the book in his spare time, it's what was in the book, his beliefs on marriage and sexuality (apparently it was not PC) but still amazing they fired him for something he kept separate from his work life.
You could have gone to work in the dreaded private sector like most of us. It's always an option.
You could have gone to work in the dreaded private sector like most of us. It's always an option.
As an 18 year old in 65 what do you think the odds were of getting the letter from Uncle informing me that I'd been "selected?" The majority of the males in my high school class ended up working for Uncle. Half of them were not volunteers.
Good win! The only downside is the leftscum responsible won’t pay up, the taxpayers will. That’s something we need to find a way to fix.
Sorry, different rules apply to people in military intelligence or others who have security clearances. Well, unless someone is a prominent Democrat - rules clearly don’t apply to them. Or at least didn’t used to. Have a hunch that may be changing.
Sensitivity training is just re-education or brain washing. It is used on people who are accused of wrong thinking.
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