A Georgia university is requiring its employees to sign a statement saying they are not gay or else risk getting fired. Hit the jump to read the rest of the story.
@WiL
Shorter University, a Christian Baptist university in Rome, Ga., sent the new “personal lifestyle pledge” to its 200 employees on Oct. 26, Atlanta’s WSBTV television reported.
Employees who sign the pledge promise to reject homosexuality, as well as premarital sex, adultery and other behavior the school says violates the Bible’s teaching.
Don Dowless, the school’s president, told WSBTV that teachers and administrators who don’t sign the pledge could lose their jobs.
“I think that anybody that adheres to a lifestyle outside of what the biblical mandate is would not be allowed to continue here,” Dowless told the station.
The statement also bans drug use, drinking alcohol in the presence of students and requires employees to be active in local churches.
One employee told the Georgia Voice newspaper that the pledge has some fearing “witch hunts” on campus.
“We now will live in fear that someone who doesn’t like us personally or someone who has had a bad day will report that we’ve been drinking or that we are suspected of being gay,” the employee, who didn t give his name, told the Voice, an LBGT-oriented paper in Atlanta.
That employee told the Voice that students weren’t happy about the pledge.
Another unidentified student told WSBTV that he understood where the “[the administration] was coming from.”
Students do not need to sign the pledge.
Dowless said the school has a right to hire whomever they want.
“Anything that is not biblical, we do not accept,” he told WSBTV.
