Those are the excuses I expect to hear in the preponderance of cases of Christians being denied tenure. Christianity won´t be specifically cited as the reason for its denial, threading through liability issues, so they come up with this other subterfuge.
Academics write books all the time. Christians though, who are clearly not wanted in academia, do so at their peril.
This guy was not a Christian. He was an IDer. He refuted creationism.
What you are seeing is the religious version of the race card. People are being denied things purely on their merits, but because they are religious they think they can claim persecution, and others of their persuasion will automatically believe them and support them.
Academics write books all the time.
And if they're smart, they won't let it affect their academic work as severely as Gonzalez did. Look at the facts! Before granting permanent employement a university wants serious assurance that a candidate will continue to publish at a high rate, pull in major grant money and have a lot of successful doctoral students. Once Gonzalez got there:
You will hear his proponents tell you that 90% get tenure at that university. That's a lie on two levels. One, that's only of applicants, and most people don't apply unless they have a good chance of getting tenure. Second, the tenure rate of applicants in his department (the one that matters) is only 66%. So, in a highly competitive environment, with a sub-standard record at that university, he didn't make the two-thirds cut. Boo-hoo.
I have zero sympathy for people who play the race card, the religion card, or any other such card.