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STATE OF GEORGIA DEMANDS PASTOR TURN OVER SERMONS, NOTES~PREVIOUSLY FIRED BY STATE FOR SERMON CONTENTS WITHIN ONE WEEK OF BEING HIRED
The state of Georgia is demanding copies of the sermons and related notes of a lay pastor who was fired by the Department of Public Health after it investigated what he said in his church.
But Dr. Eric Walsh is resisting, issuing a statement via his legal team that he will not comply with the demand from state lawyers.
The state’s demand is in response to a lawsuit filed by Walsh against the Department of Health charging discrimination based on his religion and other civil rights violations.
He’s getting support from a pastor who successfully fought off a demand by Houston officials for copies of his sermons.
Walsh’s ordeal began in May 2014 when he accepted an offer to become district health director with the state agency. Only a week later, a state official asked him to provide copies of sermons he had preached as a lay minister with a Seventh-day Adventist Church.
Lee Rudd, the agency’s human resources director, then assigned staff members to listen to the YouTube recordings immediately. Two days later, Walsh was fired.
At that point, lawyers with First Liberty Institute joined forces with the Atlanta legal team of Parks, Chesin & Walbert to file a federal lawsuit against the state agency.
Now, in response to Walsh’s lawsuit, the state has delivered a “Request for Production of Documents” that demands once again, among a flood of other paperwork, “copies of his sermon notes and transcripts.”
“This is an excessive display of the government overreaching its authority and violating the sanctity of the church,” said Jeremy Dys, senior counsel for First Liberty.
“No government has the right to require a pastor to turn over his sermons,” said Walsh in a statement released by his lawyers. “I cannot and will not give up my sermons unless I am forced to do so.”
Officials with the Georgia Department of Health declined to respond to a WND request for comment, instead referring a reporter to the state attorney general, who did not respond to a request for comment.
Walsh’s lawyers scheduled a news conference as a display of support.
On the guest list was Pastor Dave Welch of Houston, one of five pastors whose sermons were demanded by a lesbian mayor during her campaign to establish protections for her sexual preferences in city code.
WND broke the story when the city launched its action against the pastors and also reported when Rush Limbaugh described Parker’s actions as possibly “one of the most vile, filthy, blatant violations of the Constitution that I have seen.”
In a prepared statement Wednesday on Walsh’s case, Welch said, “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Georgia’s demand is even worse than when the mayor of Houston demanded 17 different categories of materials, including sermons, from … us.”
Welch, the executive director of the Texas Pastor Council, said what is happening to Walsh is “worse than what happened in Houston for multiple reasons.”
“First, this is state government coming after a pastor, not just a rogue mayor in one city,” he said. “Also, the state is demanding much more material: sermons, sermon notes, all documents without even topical or time limits. It could even include margin notes in this pastor’s preaching Bible. It’s almost as if they are ransacking the pastor’s study. This sweeping demand is ominous and a threat to every pastor, every church, every denomination, and every citizen of faith in America.”
Leaders of Concerned Women for America Legislative Action Committee, part of the nation’s largest public policy women’s group with 500,000 members, also came to Walsh’s defense.
Penny Nance, CEO, said: “The words of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., that, ‘Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,’ still reverberate today – especially as we witness the ‘Gestapo-like’ tactics of his native state. The state of Georgia’s blatant attack on religious freedom, as they discriminate against another pastor, Dr. Eric Walsh, is indeed a threat to every American, whatever our religious beliefs.
“Can there be a clearer violation of our First Amendment right to religious freedom than for the state to monitor, examine, and retaliate against a person because of the sermons they share?”
WND reported earlier on the case brought against the state after its officials reviewed Walsh’s sermons and then fired him.
“No one in this country should be fired from their job for something that was said in a church or from a pulpit during a sermon,” Dys told Fox News when the case was filed. “He was fired for something he said in a sermon. If the government is allowed to fire someone over what he said in his sermons, they can come after any of us for our beliefs on anything.”
The original state investigation of Walsh’s sermons apparently was sparked by “one complaint” from an official with a county Democratic Party and “gay activist.”
State officials also joked about informing Walsh of his firing.
The telephone call was between Dr. Patrick O’Neal, an agency official, and Kate Pfirman, an agency financial officer. The call was captured on an answering machine, which also caught their conversation after they thought they had hung up.
Pfirman said: “And I’m gonna be very – I’m gonna try to come off as very cold, because I don’t want to say very much. If I try to make it warm – I’ve thought that through, it’s gonna just not – there’s no warm way to say it anyway.”
Then there was laughter from both parties.
O’Neal then said to inform Walsh, “You’re out,” and there was another round of laughter.
“It’s very funny,” Pfirman said.
In the Houston dispute, voters ultimately soundly rejected Parker’s ordinance giving “gays” and transgendered people special rights. Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2016/10/state-that-fired-pastor-demands-his-sermons-notes/#et0zoQWZJJ8vGl3M.99
A doctor who said he was fired from his position with the state of Georgia because of his Christian faith said new documents prove his claims.
The battle between Dr. Eric Walsh and the Georgia Department of Public Health has brewed for some time, but Wednesday he unveiled a big development.
In May of 2014, Walsh accepted a position as the District Health Director for Georgia’s Department of Health. Just one week later, he got a call from the state telling him he was fired.
Walsh said two days before his termination state employees called with questions about his work with the Seventh Day Adventist Church. The department asked to view sermons he had given on topics ranging from sexuality, to marriage, to science and politics.
Walsh has maintained since day one that he was fired for his Christian beliefs, but the state has always denied that. Fast forward to now. Walsh is embroiled in a legal battle with the state and the state has now demanded he turn over every document relating to his service as a pastor for the Seventh Day Adventist Church.
Walsh and his attorneys said it is simple. If his faith played no role in his firing, why would documents about his Christian faith play any role in his lawsuit against the state?
“That means that every scrap of paper that Dr. Walsh has scribbled an outline on has to be produced. Every megabyte from the computer that he worked on to produce the sermon those have to be produced now to the state of Georgia,” said Jeremy Dys, First Liberty Institute. “In fact, even the notes that he has written in the margin of his preaching bible, that bible will have to be produced to the state of Georgia. That is wrong.”
“My faith has fueled me, and I want to be able to protect faith of others. So, I really have no intention of turning over the sermons,” said Dr. Eric Walsh.
That question will play out in court because Walsh said he has no intention of complying with the demand.
FOX 5 News has reached out to the state for a comment, but did not hear back from them by early Wednesday evening.
In the past, the state has claimed that during the background check process it learned Dr. Walsh failed to disclose outside employment to his previous public health employer. The state said that is a violation of their policy and California law and is the reason Dr. Walsh lost his job.
Dr. Eric Walsh Fired for Sermons
Speaks to Fox & Friends
Published on Apr 25, 2016
State of Georgia fires public health official over sermons. Dr. Eric Walsh is an expert in public health with multiple advanced degrees. He has served as the director of the City of Pasadena’s Public Health Department, was appointed to President Obama’s Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDs and also served as an associate pastor for his church. In May 2014, the State of Georgia’s Department of Public Health hired Dr. Walsh as a District Health Director. But soon after Dr. Walsh accepted the offer, state officials asked him to submit recordings of his sermons for their review. After inspecting his sermons, they fired him. First Liberty Institute filed a lawsuit against the State of Georgia on behalf of Dr. Walsh because no one should be fired from his job for something he said in a sermon.
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