Kelvin Cochran, the former fire chief of Atlanta, was fired Tuesday of last week (Jan. 6) after his book, “Who Told You that You Were Naked?” was published and distributed to other employees in the fire department. In the book, he expresses his Christian beliefs, which include his stance that homosexuality is a sin. Initially, Cochran was placed on an unpaid suspension for a month, but was terminated at the end of that suspension period.
Mayor Kasim Reed cited a violation of the city's code of conduct as the reason for Cochran’s termination.
"Despite my respect for Chief Cochran’s service, I believe his actions and decision-making undermine his ability to effectively manage a large, diverse work force,” Reed said. “Every single employee under the fire chief’s command deserves the certainty that he or she is a valued member of the team and that fairness and respect guide employment decisions."
Reed added that his confidence in Cochran, who has served in the department for 30 years, has "eroded" due to Cochran's "actions around the book and his statements during this investigation."
Reed further asserted that he was not made aware of the fact that Cochran was planning on publishing such a book, but Cochran argues that he gave Reed a copy of the book one year ago, and that the city’s ethics department did not mention any disagreement when Cochran ran the book by them before publishing. Cochran further noted that those who received a copy of the book within his department were Christians with whom he already had “a personal relationship with.”
“The LGBT members of our community have a right to be able to express their views and convictions about sexuality and deserve to be respected for their position without hate or discrimination,” Cochran said. “But Christians also have a right to express our belief regarding our faith and be respected for our position without hate and without discrimination. In the United States, no one should be vilified, hated, or discriminated against for expressing their beliefs.”
Supporters of Reed’s decision to terminate Cochran said that publishing such a book and distributing it created a hostile work environment. “You can’t couch bigotry and create an intimidating environment at work, and cloak it in your beliefs and not expect to have consequences,” Beth Littrell, a senior lawyer of Lambda legal, a gay rights group based in New York, told the New York Times.
But Cochran, who also serves as a Sunday school teacher and Bible study leader at Atlanta's Elizabeth Baptist Church, said that he has continually striven to demonstrate “a love without condition.”
“There’s not any person of any people group that has interacted with me for any measure of time that can say I have hate or disregard or discrimination in my heart for any people group,” he told Todd Starnes of Fox News.
Cochran’s termination has been widely criticized by Christian and conservative leaders who assert that Cochran has not actually carried out any actions that were discriminatory, and was fired for simply expressing his religious beliefs in his self-published book. His views on same-sex relationships were mentioned in less than half of a page, and directly cited the Bible rather than adding his personal interpretation. Additionally, Cochran did not single out homosexuality, but homosexuality was included in the cited Bible passage which dealt with sexual sins in general.
“In our country we don't punish people for the potential to discriminate; we punish them for actually discriminating. To our knowledge, unless the mayor knows about it and hasn’t said so, there’s no allegation to speak of,” Robert Potts, spokesman for the Faith and Freedom Coalition, said.
Despite the controversy and his circumstances, Cochran said that he is "not discouraged [nor] downtrodden,” according to his interview with Starnes.
“This is a God thing and He’s going to do great things, and He will vindicate me publicly.”
