Georgia’s Shorter University tells workers to sign pledge they are not gay

This from the Washington Post :

To better ensure its staff follows the school’s biblical mandate, Georgia's Shorter University told its 200 employees late last month to sign a “Personal Lifestyle Statement” rejecting homosexuality, adultery and premarital sex.

The New York Daily News reports that those who don’t sign the pledge may lose their jobs.

The pledge also bans teachers and administrators at the conservative Christian university from drinking alcohol in front of students and requires they be active in local churches.

A gay university employee told the Georgia Voice that the pledge has many employees fearing witchhunts. “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,” he said.

The employee, who chose to remain anonymous for fear of repercussion by the school, said that while students don’t have to sign the pledge, they, too, are worried about how they might be affected next.

Tamara King Henderson, a student at Shorter who says she is bisexual, commented on the Georgia Voice story that she was concerned the pledge could impact her education. “This could hurt the University’s ability to attract the best and the brightest professors available... [and] ability to receive federal funds.”

Henderson also quoted anti-Nazi theologian and Lutheran pastor Martin Niemöller, who said: “ First they came for the communists, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me.”

“Will the students be next?” she asked.

“They (employees) must be transparent,” Shorter President Donald Dowless (photo) told the Rome News-Tribune. “The rules are already in place and we have set up fair expectations up front. It is not unusual for any company to have a code of conduct.”

Cal State Instructor Reinstated: Fired over refusing loyalty oath

Cal State East Bay teacher refused to sign

on religious grounds.

HAYWARD, Calif. -- A Quaker math instructor who was fired by Cal State East Bay after she refused on religious grounds to sign a state loyalty oath has been reinstated, university officials said Friday.Marianne Kearney-Brown, a pacifist, was concerned that signing the oath to "support and defend" the California and U.S. constitutions against all enemies, foreign and domestic" could commit her to take up arms. She was fired Feb. 28 after she inserted the word "nonviolently" before "support and defend" and signed that version.

The university, averting a showdown over religious freedom, agreed to rehire Kearney-Brown after the office of state Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown helped draft a statement declaring that the oath does not commit employees to bear arms in the country's defense.

Kearney-Brown, 50, said she was relieved that the issue was resolved and excited to return next week to teaching her class in remedial math. "I just want to teach kids who hate math," she said. "That's all I want to do."

The idea that someone could be fired for refusing to sign a loyalty oath came as a surprise to many Californians who were unaware that public employees are still required to sign it. The pledge was added to the state Constitution in 1952 at the height of anti-Communist hysteria and has remained a prerequisite for public employment ever since. All state, city, county, public school, community college and public university employees are required to sign the 86-word oath. Noncitizens are exempt...

This from the L A Times.