There are a couple of stories about religion and the workplace that are shocking. The first comes from Atlanta.

Atlanta Fire Chief Kelvin Cochran was suspended for one month without pay for publishing a book that says homosexuality and having multiple sexual partners is “vile,” “vulgar,” and “inappropriate.”

“Chief Cochran is an evangelical Christian who has not shied away from his faith in the past. He left the Atlanta Fire Department to take a job in the Obama Administration. He returned, however, to the city he loves to head its Fire Department. But the gay mafia is loudly complaining that Chief Cochran, by writing this book, will suddenly now not put out the fires of gay homes, or something like that.”

How often were we told that legalizing same-sex sexuality and same-sex marriages would not affect anybody negatively? Neal Boortz, an Atlanta-based talk show host on WSB radio until he retired and the station turned over the microphone to Herman Cain, was a point-man for this argument. Boortz and so many more were dead wrong.

“When a photographer is forced by the government, under the threat of severe legal and financial penalties, to attend a gay wedding and to artistically present that wedding — against the dictates of his conscience — as a beautiful, blessed event, it deprives him of his liberty and endangers the free speech of all of us.”

You may have seen this meme:

As we are seeing, the courts and government agencies disagree. If you don’t like gay marriage and say so or refuse to support gay marriage, you can lose your job or get fined.

Also in Georgia, at Georgia Southern University, a professor “is being investigated following claims by atheist activists that he proselytizes and pushes his Christian and creationist views on students. Dr. Tom McMullen, a history professor at Georgia Southern University in Statesboro, Georgia, is being accused by the Freedom From Religion Foundation and the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science of First Amendment violations, according to the Statesboro Herald.”

These two atheist outfits are using student evaluation posts as evidence. But there are a good number of posts that argue that Dr. McMullen is a good and competent teacher. One student wrote that some of Dr. McMullen’s views are “outdated,” two of which are his skepticism of man-made “climate change,” and, of course, his rejection of macro-evolution on scientific grounds.

Despite some negative reviews, that all professors get, Dr. McMullen “has been given an ‘A’ overall on RateMyProfessors.com, where he has also been showered with praise from former students.”

If these protesting students can’t handle contrary views, then they have no business being in college. And please don’t try to tell me that a majority of atheistic professors don’t try to proselytize their students by having them read atheist literature and attend evolution-based “propaganda” films?

Look how the Freedom From Religion folks frame their accusations against Dr. McMullen:

“He could even legitimately discuss religious doctrines masquerading as science, such as young earth creationism and intelligent design,” the letter stated. “However, it appears that McMullen does not present these as religious ideas lacking scientific merit. Instead, McMullen presents these religious beliefs as scientific fact.”

The presumption in the above charge is that something from nothing, atoms to man evolution is settled science that has empirical evidence backing its claims. Anybody at all familiar with the facts knows that this is not the case. If the argument is so foolish, as atheists contend, it seems to me that they would welcome such absurdity.

In fact, it’s the fear of being exposed that is most troubling to these types of organizations. They had academic freedom when it’s their monopoly of that freedom that’s being challenged.

Dawkins, who is not an American citizen, and the Freedom From Religion Foundation, need to be reminded that the First Amendment, if they are going to cite it in defense of their claims, applies to Dr. McMullen as well.