Christian Consultant Fired by Bank of America Over Gay Marriage Book
Just months after being fired from Cisco Systems in California over an anti-gay marriage book, Christian consultant Dr. Frank Turek was also given the boot from Bank of America.
"I get a lot of flak for just actually agreeing with what a majority of Americans agree on and that is that marriage is between one man and one woman," Turek said this past week on American Family Radio.
Turek was doing work on and off for Bank of America for about 15 years, mainly conducting leadership and team building programs, he said. Other clients have included Coca Cola, Home Depot and CIGNA, among others.
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The U.S. Navy veteran was hired in May to present at a meeting of Bank of America's Global Business Management & Analysis Team within Global Wealth and Investment Management.
He was scheduled to give a presentation – called "Why Can't You Be Normal Just Like Me?" – on how to adapt to diverse personalities to improve productivity and relationships.
Three days before his June presentation, however, Turek was told by an HR manager that he was essentially fired.
"I got a phone call from one of the HR managers there who said we've just learned someone googled you and found out you wrote a book called Correct, Not Politically Correct: How Same-Sex Marriage Hurts Everyone and so we can't have you teach here anymore," Turek recounted on American Family Radio.
In a letter he sent to CEO Brian Moynihan, Turek argued that marriage was not the topic of his presentation, nor has it ever been in all his years of working with the bank.
"What does sexual activity, a person's sexual preference have to do with work productivity anyway?" he contended on the radio show, pondering why the HR department even brought it up.
His book, notably, also got him fired as a consultant with Cisco earlier this year.
A manager at that company had taken offense at the book after googling Turek's name and complained to the director of inclusion and diversity for Cisco.
While Bank of America also promotes "inclusion" and "diversity," Turek complained to the CEO that he was being excluded for his political and religious viewpoint.
He asked Moynihan to consider what would've happened if he had written a book in favor of gay marriage and a conservative employee complained.
"They probably would’ve fired the conservative employee," Turek conjectured.
He also made clear in his letter that he treats all people with respect and agrees with the bank's "inclusion" value to ensure that people work together cordially and professionally despite diverse political, moral or religious views.
The consultant noted on AFR that he holds to a traditional marriage view "not because of hate or bigotry but because of the biological facts of nature that the only relationship that can procreate and bring forth the next generation and best nurture the next generation is when a man and a woman get together."
Turek will be meeting with Bank of America's head of inclusion and diversity in the coming week, he said.
"To their credit, they called me back and said 'I think we made a mistake here,'" he said on the radio show.
"At least some people there are, obstensibly anyway, telling me that they realize the hypocrisy but we'll see where this goes."
Ultimately, Turek said he wants all corporations to "stop trying to indoctrinate employees into accepting certain sexual behaviors, particularly homosexuality."
"I think they ought to teach people that they ought to respect other people because they are human beings, not because they sleep with a certain person," he added.
