The Faith and Freedom Coalition, the Duluth-based grass-roots conservative group launched by former Christian Coalition head Ralph Reed, is urging its members to bombard Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed on the topic of Fire Chief Kelvin Cochran.
Suspended since Nov. 24 for calling homosexuality a “perversion” in a self-published book, Cochran has become the focus of a fight over “religious liberty.”
Supporters of religious liberty bills filed during this year’s legislative session said they would make it difficult for government to intrude on someone’s religious freedom. But foes said such legislation would allow private business owners to cite their religious beliefs in declining to serve people they believed were gay or engaging in premarital sex. Many in Atlanta’s big business community said religious liberty bills could tar Georgia as unfriendly to gays.
Similar legislation is already being filed ahead of the legislative session that begins Jan. 12.
In an “action alert” email, the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s executive director, Tim Head, said Cochran “has as much right to speak and write about his beliefs as any Atlanta politician does.”
“In Chief Cochran’s distinguished career, he has led complex fire departments across the country, which is why Atlanta’s former mayor hired Chief Cochran to run Atlanta’s fire department and why President Obama appointed him to lead the U.S. Fire Administration a few years ago,” Head said. “The mayor and city council need to wash their hands of this and let Chief Cochran get back to doing his job.”
The email urged people to contact the mayor and encourage him to lift Cochran’s suspension “and to stop infringing on religious freedom!”
Cochran mounted his own defense at the Georgia Baptist Convention on Dec. 9, where he was introduced by Gerald Harris.
Harris, the editor of a conservative blog called the Christian Index, later published the introduction as an editorial in which he said that “our religious liberty is under an organized and concentrated attack.”
The editorial noted that Cochran wrote in his book that “uncleanness ‘is opposite of purity; including sodomy, homosexuality, lesbianism, pederasty, bestiality, and all other forms of sexual perversion.’”
“Those words, which are consistent with the teaching of the Bible, are the words that prompted Cochran’s suspension,” Harris wrote. “But this issue is bigger than the impact it has had on Kelvin Cochran. It impacts every Baptist and every person of faith in Georgia and in the nation.”
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