Cop Posts Antigay Message, Quits Force, Does Right-Wing Media Tour

On January 2, 19-year-old Port Wentworth, Ga., cop Jacob Kersey shared his opposition to LGBTQ+ rights on social media. “God designed marriage. Marriage refers to Christ and the church. That’s why there is no such thing as homosexual marriage,” Kersey wrote on Facebook.

The next day, according to Metro Weekly, Kersey's supervisor called him, letting him know that someone had complained and that he needed to take the post down. Kersey refused, and was subsequently warned that leaving the post as it was could result in his termination.

He was warned again later by another superior officer that a post such as Kersey’s opened the department up to liability in “use of force” situations specifically with the LGBTQ+ community, but to no avail.

The third call from yet another superior ordered him to go into the office to hand in all city-owned items he had.

He was told that he was “being placed on administrative leave while the city investigated to see if I could keep my job,” Kersey told the anti-LGBTQ+ publication The Daily Signal. “I was told that I was wise beyond my years, an old soul, and that they brag on me all the time, but that I couldn’t post things like that.”

Kersey said Police Chief Matt Libby told him that his Facebook post on marriage was the “same thing as saying the N-word and ‘F— all those homosexuals.’” Kersey said his captain told him that his free speech “was limited due to my position as … a police officer.”

He wasn't fired though but placed on one week of administrative leave. He received a letter January 13 from another supervisor, Maj. Lee Sherrod, who wrote, that although the investigation “did not find sufficient evidence to establish a violation of any policies,” Kersey’s post “could raise reasonable concerns regarding your objectivity and the performance of your job duties when a member or suspected member of the LGBTQ+ community is involved,” and that if future posts or statements were shown to have similar issue and found to compromise his ability to perform his duties “in a fair and equitable manner,” he could be terminated. Kersey was also reminded that same-sex marriage is legal nationwide since the Obergefell vs. Hodges Supreme Court ruling in 2015.

Told he could post direct Bible quotations, but not his interpretations, Kersey said to Fox News, “That is such a dangerous precedent: that if you’re off-duty on your own time, that you could say anything — even something religious, even something at church — if someone somewhere gets offended, you can get fired for it.”

Kersey decided to resign and, as mentioned above, then take his tale to sympathetic, conservative media outlets.

Police chief Libby announced his retirement last week, and there is some indication he was pushed to do so.