When Georgia found out its new public health director preached Christian beliefs, they fired him

Dr. Eric Walsh is a California physician, a former director of public health in Pasadena, CA, and is a Christian who often delivers sermons when he’s not working. That little fact, apparently, disqualifies him from fulfilling his duties for his new position as a district health director in Georgia.

State officials got wind that (gasp!) he’d preached on subjects like evolution, pop culture, and Islam. They also heard of Walsh’s past brushes with progressive student activists at Pasadena City College who protested the doctor’s scheduled commencement speech and forced him to cancel his appearance. Even more incredibly, the city of Pasadena put Walsh on administrative leave because of this. (By the way, a homosexual screenwriter ended up giving the commencement speech.)

But back in Georgia, where Republican Gov. Nathan Deal has recently vetoed religious-liberty legislation in the name of “inclusivity,” Walsh was targeted by government officials who actually assigned health-department employees to dig through his sermons and report on the content. Ignoring their own department’s lawyers, officials let him go.

The First Liberty Institute filed a lawsuit on behalf of Walsh. Health department officials are claiming the sermons had nothing to do with its decision and have accused the doctor of hiding extra income earned in California; a subject the lawsuit indicates never once came up during his hire.

National Review‘s David French goes into more detail about Walsh’s case, but here’s a taste of how how he breaks down this blatant assassination of constitutional liberties:

The Left used to say that it wasn’t concerned with Christian speech in houses of worship. Instead, it was only focused on “ending discrimination.” But now the Left is the discriminator, seeking to purge vocal Christians from public life. Now, even sermons are not safe from government scrutiny, and a man who’s never been accused of workplace discrimination finds himself unable to find a job in the public-health sector.