Mayor Kasim Reed (D-Atlanta) under fire for firing anti-gay fire chief

[JRP1994]

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/12/us/atlanta-mayor-kasim-reeds-dismissal-of-fire-chief-kelvin-cochran-ignites-religious-bias-debate.html?_r=0

[Grumpier Than Thou]

Good.

[Frozen Sky Ever Why]

Disgusting. Has nothing to do with his competence as a fire chief.

[Antonio the Sixth]

That thread title is a burn.

[badgate]

Disgusting. Has nothing to do with his competence as a fire chief.

A gay man's house is on fire. Now it has a lot to do with it.

[TDAS04]

Good for the Mayor. 

[Nhoj]

Disgusting. Has nothing to do with his competence as a fire chief.

A gay man's house is on fire. Now it has a lot to do with it.

Thats only relevant if he said he was going to refuse to serve gay people. However his book distributing does seem like it probably violates something.

[ElectionsGuy]

Disgusting. Has nothing to do with his competence as a fire chief.

[Cory]

Disgusting. Has nothing to do with his competence as a fire chief.

[MaxQue]

Good. Unauthorised use of his office for proselytism. If you want to convert people, do that on your off-time, not while you're being paid to work.

[bedstuy]

Disgusting. Has nothing to do with his competence as a fire chief.

If you're someone's boss, you create an unfair work environment if you make these kind of broad, hateful statements to your employees.  How could he be trusted to make, for example, a hiring decision between an openly gay person and a straight person?  That's part of having that responsibility, you can't make those kind of public statements about how you hate black people, or gay people, or women, or whatever group. 

[user12345]

I would love to see how all the Christians who are angry about this feel if a non-Christian fire chief passed out books calling Christians "vile, vulgar and inappropriate". Any person who is advancing an agenda at work, especially in public service has no place there.

[Gass3268]

Good work Mr. Mayor.

[DrScholl]

Disgusting. Has nothing to do with his competence as a fire chief.

Handing out the book was not an appropriate thing for him to do at work. The mayor has the authority to dismiss anyone that he appoints.

[Adam Griffin]

The city not only has a non-discrimination ordinance, but a policy that says any city employees must go through the proper channels and have the book reviewed by multiple entities (and in the case of someone like the Fire Chief, that includes the Mayor) before it can be published. This did not happen. Non-action by the Mayor could have left the City open to future lawsuits (and maybe still, even at this point).

[Ebowed]

Publicly announcing your hateful views, and attempting to influence others towards the same preference, is going to lead to all sorts of consequences.  There's a reason Grand Wizards aren't appointed to public safety posts anymore.  Though granted they would be worse at extinguishing fires than the average prude.