Month: May 2014

City Suspends Pastor Pending Review of Sermons

Public Health Director Eric Walsh of Pasadena, CA, is a bivocational minister. He works for a church, and he works for the City of Pasadena.

According to the Los Angeles Times, Walsh is an associate pastor at Altadena Seventh-day Adventist Church in California, and he was hired as Pasadena’s Public Health Director in 2010. But his employer, the City of Pasadena, has placed him on temporary paid administrative leave following statements he made to his church concerning homosexuality and evolution.

The LA Times writes:

“In sermons uploaded to various websites, Walsh, a Seventh-day Adventist preacher, calls evolution ‘a religion created by Satan,’ compares Disney to a ‘dark empire’ of superstition and witchcraft, and criticizes homosexuality. . . .

“[City spokesman William] Boyer said the city placed Walsh on leave because time is needed to review the online sermons and conduct an inquiry into his ability to lead the department.”

Here’s a question: What does a man’s opinion of the Disney corporation have to do with his ability to work as Public Health Director? Are his views on evolution affecting his ability to conduct restaurant inspections? Do his beliefs about homosexuality prevent him from working with low-income HIV/AIDS patients–something Pasadena’s Health Department has done under his watch? Or is this actually about expressing views the city finds disagreeable?

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U.S. Supreme Court Issues Good Ruling, Sides with Religious Liberty

Since 1999, the New York town of Greece has opened its monthly city meetings with prayer offered by a volunteer.

In 2007 two of the local residents, Linda Stephens and Susan Galloway, attended one of the town’s meetings, which was opened with a Christian prayer. The two ladies later sued the town, alleging that “continued Christian prayer at the opening of town meetings is unconstitutional.”

The lawsuit progressed through federal court before finally being appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. Today the court ruled–once again–that it is permissible to open public meetings with prayer.

Alliance Defending Freedom, who argued successfully before the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of Greece, stated that “the practice of town councils to acknowledge America’s religious heritage and invoke divine guidance and blessings upon their work has always been constitutional.”

We have written before about calls to prayer and prayer at public meetings during the early days of our nation. To read more about this story by our friends at Alliance Defending Freedom, click here.

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