WaPo-owned TheRoot.com Denounces Christian College as 'Criminal' and Not 'Christ-like'

Yesterday I noted the unbalanced reporting of Washington Post blogger Elizabeth Flock regarding a Georgia Christian university's new policy requiring all faculty to agree to abide by certain standards of conduct, including not engaging in homosexual acts, premarital sex, or adultery.

Today I found an equally biased and harshly-toned blog post from Nsenga Burton, editor-at-large of the Washington Post-owned website TheRoot.com.

"Shorter University: Swear You're Not Gay Or You're Fired," blared Burton's headline.

"With all that's going on in the world, you would think that these zealots could find something else to do other than managing other people's lives and threatening their livelihood in the process, which, by the way, is not very Christ-like. In fact, it sounds criminal," Burton huffed.

Yet it seems Burton may not have read the Christian college's new policy in its entirely, as she wrote that "We wonder if your job will be at risk if you are found to be involved in drugs, pedophilia or other criminal activity."

Of course Shorter's "Personal Lifestyle Statement," available online as a PDF, makes perfectly clear that use of illegal drugs is cause for disciplinary action up to and including termination of employment:

I will not engage in the use, sale, possession, or production of illegal drugs.

What's more, one imagines that this item in the statement forbids faculty from pornography of any sort as well as pedophilia:

I reject as acceptable all sexual activity not in agreement with the Bible, including, but not limited to, premarital sex, adultery, and homosexuality.

Shorter, a Baptist institution, will also require faculty to abstain from drinking alcohol in public settings:

I will not use alcoholic beverages in the presence of students, and I will abstain from serving, from using, and from advocating the use of alcoholic beverages in public (e.g. in locations that are open to use by the general public, including as some examples restaurants, concert venues, stadiums, and sports facilities) and in settings in which students are present or are likely to be present. I will not attend any University sponsored event in which I have consumed alcohol within the last six hours. Neither will I promote or encourage the use of alcohol.

Burton appears to have gotten her [mis]information on Shorter's policy from a biased post by TPMMuckraker blogger David Taintor, who portrayed the policy in a November 1 post as "asking all employees to sign a 'personal lifestyle statement' declaring their heterosexuality."

Taintor's TPM blog post failed to note other portions of the statement about illegal drugs, alcohol and the requirement that faculty be members of a local church.