Thousands Sign Petitions to Reinstate Fire Chief Who Lost Job over Belief in Biblical Marriage

Carrie Dedrick | Updated: Jan 14, 2015

Thousands Sign Petitions to Reinstate Fire Chief Who Lost Job over Belief in Biblical Marriage

Thousands have rallied behind Atlanta Chief Kelvin Cochran after word spread that the chief had lost his position over his belief in biblical marriage. Cochran was recently fired after Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed received a complaint that a short book Cochran had written for his Bible study discriminated against the LGBT community. 

About 100,000 people have now signed petitions, urging Mayor Reed to reinstate Cochran as the city’s fire chief. 

A petition launched by the National Organization for Marriage says, ““By caving into the radical activists who decided to bully and harass Mr. Cochran, you have sent a message to all Atlanta residents that you will not support their own rights to hold and to express their religious values in the public square, but will sell them out to special interests and powerful lobbies. I urge you to right this wrong and undo the harm done to Mr. Cochran and to all people of faith in Atlanta and throughout the country.”

Pastors and Christian leaders from across the country also gathered at the Georgia Capitol Rotunda Tuesday (Jan. 13) to march to city hall and deliver boxes of petitions to Reed’s office. 

Cochran’s book, Who Told You That You Were Naked, mentions homosexuality on one page out of 160. 

Cochran wrote, “Uncleanness [is] whatever is opposite of purity; including sodomy, homosexuality, lesbianism, pederasty, bestiality, all other forms of sexual perversion. Naked men refuse to give in, so they pursue sexual fulfillment through multiple partners, with the opposite sex, the same sex and sex outside of marriage and many other vile, vulgar and inappropriate ways which defile their body-temple and dishonor God.”

Publication date: January 14, 2015



Thousands Sign Petitions to Reinstate Fire Chief Who Lost Job over Belief in Biblical Marriage