Opinion: Fire chief Kelvin Cochran burned by progressive piety

Former fire chief Kelvin Cochran speaks after his hearing in Atlanta. Picture: AP

Kelvin Cochran was raised in Shreveport, Louisiana, in the 1960s and recalls always having the same answer when adults would quiz him about what he wanted to be when he grew up.

“I told them that I did not want to be poor, because we were very poor; that I wanted a family, because my dad had left my mother; and that I wanted to be a firefighter,” he explained in a 2017 interview. When Kelvin was 5, he returned from church with his family one Sunday and saw a neighbour’s home ablaze. “I saw the firefighters, and I was smitten on that day. I knew that I wanted to be a firefighter.”

Mr Cochran went on to fulfil all those childhood ambitions and much more. He’s been married for more than three decades and has adult children. He became Shreveport’s first black fire chief in 1999, and in 2008 he was appointed the fire chief of Atlanta. A year later, President Obama tapped him for U.S. fire administrator, the highest office in the nation for a firefighter. Mr Cochran was lured back to Atlanta in 2010 by then-Mayor Kasim Reed, who praised the fire chief for “dramatic improvements in response times and staffing” and “much-deserved national recognition.”

Even when Mr Cochran isn’t on the job, he’s trying to save people. He’s a deacon at his Baptist church in Atlanta, where he helps youngsters stay out of trouble and leads a men’s Bible study. In 2013 he turned his lesson plans into a book, “Who Told You That You Were Naked?,” a reference to what God says to Adam in the Book of Genesis. Self-published and written on Mr Cochran’s own time, the book explains how the Bible’s teachings can help men become responsible husbands and fathers.

But when it was publicised in November 2014 that a brief section of the 162-page book that deals with sexual morality is critical of homosexual conduct, Mr Reed suspended Mr Cochran for 30 days without pay from his $172,000-a-year job, pending an internal investigation. In the end, the city found no evidence that Mr Cochran had discriminated against gay employees or anyone else. Nor was there any evidence that Mr Cochran’s religious views affected his leadership of the fire department. No matter. At the end of the suspension, the mayor fired the fire chief.

According to Mr Reed, Mr Cochran was removed from his post not because of the book’s content but because he wrote it without first getting permission. Mr Cochran found that explanation implausible and promptly filed a lawsuit. He didn’t believe he was dismissed for violating protocol. He believed that the mayor objected to his religious beliefs and traditional views on sex and marriage. Mr Cochran suspected that if he had written a book on, say, rock climbing or sea turtles, he would have kept his job.

The mayor’s own statements at the time would seem to confirm Mr Cochran’s suspicions. Mr Reed, a young and ambitious Democrat who was looking to establish his progressive bona fides, said publicly that “the material in Chief Cochran’s book” is “not representative of my personal beliefs” and is “inconsistent with the administration’s work to make Atlanta a more welcoming city for all of her citizens — regardless of their sexual orientation, gender, race and religious beliefs.”

Yes, city employees in Atlanta are required to seek permission for outside work, but Mr Cochran’s attorneys argued that those rules are intended to guard against moonlighting, not writing a book at home on weekends. A federal court in Atlanta agreed. Last December, U.S. District Judge Leigh Martin May ruled that the city violated Mr Cochran’s constitutional rights when it fired him for not getting permission to write his book. “The potential for stifled speech far outweighs an unsupported assertion of harm,” wrote Judge May. “This does not pass constitutional muster.” The only approval Mr Cochran needed was the First Amendment’s.

Last week, after four years of litigation, the city agreed to settle the case and pay its former fire chief $1.2 million. Mr Cochran told me in an interview Monday that he was pleased with the outcome and looked forward to getting on with his life. “The First Amendment rights that are assured in our Constitution have been upheld,” he said.

But his saga is a sad reminder of the hostility that progressive politicians and other government officials are directing at people of faith who dare to voice unfashionable opinions. The bakers, florists and fire chiefs who support same-sex marriage are permitted to shout it from the rooftops. The ones who don’t support it are expected to shut up, or risk having their lives destroyed. Welcome to progressivism in practice.

Wall Street Journal