Georgia Police Officer Jacob Kersey Resigns After Being Suspended For Religious Posting ‘There’s No Such Thing’ As Reporting Same-Sex Marriage

A former Georgia police officer who was under investigation for a religious social media post claiming “there is no such thing as same-sex marriage” said he felt pressured to resign after how he was told that he could be fired for sharing his beliefs.

Jacob Kersey, 19, who resigned from the Port Wentworth Police Department earlier this month, told Fox News Digital that he was placed on paid administrative leave on Jan. 4 after he refused to delete a Facebook post about his Christian beliefs about marriage. .

“God designed marriage,” Kersey wrote in a post that was flagged by his superiors after an “anonymous complaint,” according to a January 13 notice letter. It is reported by The Daily Signal. and provided by Fox News Digital. “Marriage is about Christ and the church. That’s why there is no such thing as gay marriage.”

Kersey was not fired after the investigation, but said he decided to leave because he was told he could be fired for future social media posts that others would find offensive. He said he spoke to the law firm about a possible lawsuit.

In his letter to Kersey, Major Bradwick Sherrod explained that while the department’s investigation into his social media posts “did not find sufficient evidence to establish a violation of any policies,” his posts about “protected classes” such as the LBGTQ community, ” may raise reasonable concerns about your objectivity and the performance of your job duties when it comes to a member or perceived member of the LGBTQ+ community.

“As we have previously discussed, please be reminded that if any post on any of your social media platforms, or any other statement or action, renders you unable to do your job and be considered capable of doing your job in an honest and fair manner, you may be fired. ,” the letter further warns.

The major also reminded Kersey that same-sex marriage is legal in Georgia and the US following the 2015 Supreme Court ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges.

“I didn’t do anything wrong and they told me so,” Kersey said of a meeting he later had with the department’s leadership. “That’s why I wasn’t fired. They wanted me back to work, but they were trying to create a new department policy that would not allow me to say anything that someone, somewhere, might find offensive.”

He said he was told that he could publish direct quotations from Scripture, but not his own interpretation of them.

“It’s such a dangerous precedent that if you’re off duty in your spare time, you can say anything – anything religious, anything in a church – if someone gets offended somewhere, you can be fired,” he said.

Kersey, who noted that he has hosted a podcast for seven years expressing his opinions, said his boss compared his post to someone using the “N” insult. On January 18, he decided to resign to avoid imminent dismissal and potential danger.

“I wasn’t sure that if I went out and enforced the law, my command staff would support me,” he said. “It’s too dangerous work. And I didn’t think it wise to go back to work under the circumstances.”

“I think if you compromise your integrity, your religious beliefs and your faith to win, then you have lost, and I just couldn’t do it,” he added.

The Port Wentworth Police Department, which serves the city of about 11,000 people in the Savannah metropolitan area, did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.

Kersey said other members of the department privately let him know their support, and he doesn’t blame them for not defending him publicly.

“I completely understand why other officers don’t want to speak up,” he said. “I am a 19-year-old single young man. I don’t have a lot of financial obligations so I can speak up against it because the only thing I have to lose is my job.”

He is more concerned about what such a policy could mean for officers who have a lot to lose.

“We are not talking about Canada, Russia or China here,” Kersey said. “We are talking about the United States; and even in the United States we don’t talk about California or New York. We’re talking about Georgia.”

He said that many approached him to express “absolute disbelief that something like this is happening in America and that this is happening in Georgia.”

Kersey said he developed respect and admiration for the police as they often “brought peace” to his family while he grew up in a dysfunctional family.

He recalled that many of the officers who handled his family’s domestic problems went out of their way to be kind to him when he was a boy, which he said “made a big difference in my life at a very young age.” According to him, these interactions eventually inspired him to become an officer when he was old enough.

“I joined the police department and for more than eight months I heard only good things about my work,” he said. “People have only said good things about my work as a police officer.”

Kersey said he remains unsure what his career goals are now that he’s left the department, though he said he’s considering returning to law enforcement elsewhere, going to college or joining the ministry. He hopes his story will encourage others to stand up for what they believe in, he said.

“In America, most of us will not be called to physical death for our beliefs,” he said. “But we may be called to face the death of our dreams, we may be called to face the death of our reputation, or we may be called to make other people think bad of us. But what matters is what God thinks of us.”

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