GA Southern Baptist University to Ban Gay Employees
A Southern Baptist college in Georgia is requiring ALL of its employees to sign a new statement acknowledging that they can be terminated for simply accepting homosexuality–meaning LGBT faculty members risk losing their jobs at the faith-based school over their sexual orientation.
Shorter University informed its faculty and staff about the newly-approved ‘Personal Lifestyle Statement’ on Monday. It states that the school will ONLY hire people “who are committed Bible-believing Christians,” before then outlining the four “principles of personal conduct” that employees MUST agree to.
Among those is one that says staffers will “reject as acceptable all sexual activity not in agreement with the Bible, including, but not limited to, premarital sex, adultery, and homosexuality.” The university warns that violating the policy may result in disciplinary action, including “immediate termination.”
OutQ News spoke exclusively to a Shorter University employee who we’re calling Josh. He says he was drawn to the religious institution as a gay Christian and notes sexuality was NOT an issue when he was hired.
But since the announcement, Josh says the environment at school has gotten “more tense,” particularly among the colleagues he already knew to be gay.
JOSH: Whereas it used to be that you could make friendly eye contact with a lot of people, and we knew we were all gay, now there’s a lot more averted eyes, a lot more fear of even talking to one another.
Josh says he’s hoping he won’t have to sign the new ‘Lifestyle Statement,’ adding that he’s actively searching for another job just in case. But he says depending on the economy, he may have to adhere to the school’s new anti-gay policy and sign the document.
