OPINION:
Liberals claim to be champions of “diversity” in all things, particularly in matters of race, ethnicity and gender (they mean “sex”) and gender-bending. “Our diversity is our greatest strength,” Bill Clinton, who demonstrated his embrace of diversity with the pursuit of a diversity of women in the White House, told a diversity forum last year in Phoenix.
But tolerance of a diversity of opinion, the most important diversity of all because it is the foundation of a free society, makes these champions gag. They become the thought police. You could ask Kelvin Cochran, the former fire chief of Atlanta. He was dismissed last week by Mayor Kasim Reed, who caved to the lobbying of the militants, the gays, the lesbians, the bisexuals, the transgender and the others who are unhappy with what most people think of their sexual customs.
The LGBT&O organizations were grievously offended by a book about biblical morality by Mr. Cochran, who presented his critical opinions of “sodomy, homosexuality, lesbianism, pederasty, bestiality, all other forms of sexual perversion.” This was neither an official manual nor guide book for behavior of municipal employees, but a book privately printed by Mr. Cochran, expressing his personal opinions, which — so far — is his right guaranteed by the First Amendment to the Constitution. He required no one to buy or read his book.
Mr. Cochran, who had returned as the fire chief in Atlanta following a brief tenure in a job in the Obama administration, did not single out gays, lesbians, bisexuals, etc., for disapproval, but criticized all kinds of sexual adventurers, some gay and some merely cheerful in the pursuit of pleasure. He is an equal-opportunity critic of what he deems misbehavior in many forms. The extrapolation of his opinion of homosexuality takes up only a half page of his 160-page book.
“I’m not apologetic for writing this book,” he says. “Everything I wrote in the book is based on Scriptures, not my opinions,” Mr. Cochran told reporters after the mayor announced the chief’s ouster. “I simply spoke to sex being created by God for procreation, and He intended it to be between a man and a woman in holy matrimony — and that any other sex outside of that is sin.” This may be harsh doctrine in some ears, not to everybody’s taste, but it is in the catechism of most religions, and has been for hundreds, nay thousands, of years. It may hurt the feelings of some people, but it hardly incites anyone to punish anyone.
Mr. Cochran was first suspended without pay for 30 days, and later fired. “I will not tolerate discrimination of any kind within my administration,” the mayor said. The mayor’s intolerance of a diversity of opinion — his discrimination against those who dissent from Atlanta’s municipal dogma — did not address the fact that Mr. Cochran had not discriminated against homosexuals or anyone else.
Mr. Cochran’s privately held and expressed opinions about the meaning of the Scriptures must be tolerated by everyone as long as he does not impose these opinions on anyone in the course of doing his job, and there is no evidence that he did that. Gays, like everyone else, are entitled to their rights, but no one has a right to be protected from hearing opinions that conflict with his own. Tolerance is a two-way street.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.