Jerry Falwell's Liberty University Fired a Trans Employee


Things get thorny for universities when religion gets involved. Liberty University, now a large place with more students than some state universities, gets federal funding for its students and operations. An employee who had been given good reviews working at a phone help desk notified her supervisor she had transitioned from a male to a female. A month later she was asked to attend a meeting. She was fired on the spot.

None other than the ACLU has weighed in to defend her. ACLU wins a lot of cases and often recovers lawyer costs from those it defeats. Liberty and all such "holy" places will claim it has a right to follow its religious opinions. The question always, how much harm can the religious harm people before they harm the country by eliminating equal opportunity for all? How far can they push their own particular religious views before they become the religion of the nation?

Let's take a hypothetical. What if the President of a public state university declared mixed race marriages are against his religious views? Would he be allowed to reject all student applications by mixed race couples? Could he fire mixed race couples on the faculty? Could professors kick mixed race couples from their classes?  

The trans employee did not, apparently, represent Liberty University except in help desk conversations. What harm can come to anyone can she be? She cannot harm fellow employees. 

There is no place in the Bible which says, "Anyone transitioning from one gender to another is committing a sin." Instead, many Christians point to other passages and say the most famous of all Christian phrases, "What this means is...trans people are sinners."

I hope Liberty loses some Federal funds for this mean and terrible practice.

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