Bi-vocational pastors need to be careful what they say on Sunday mornings or face firing from their other jobs, Todd Starnes writes in a column for FoxNews.com.
Starnes’ column comes after Dr. Eric Walsh, a public health expert and
lay minister, was allegedly fired from his Georgia Department of Public
Health job for giving sermons on homosexuality and evolution.
Walsh has since filed a federal lawsuit against the Georgia Department
of Public Health. The department did not return Starnes’ request for
comment.
“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 representatives say that Georgia Department of Public
Health specifically investigated sermons Dr. Walsh had delivered.
“I don’t believe I did anything wrong,” 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 they
country was founded upon – no longer exist.”
Walsh was hired on May 7, 2014. A few days later, Starnes writes, “DPH
officers and other government workers began investigating his religious
activities.” Then on May 16, the department rescinded the job offer.
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