City of Pasadena's Public Health Director Eric Walsh, who is also an associate pastor at the Altadena Seventh-day Adventist Church, has come under intense criticism for comments made in sermons he delivered in church. Pasadena City Manager Michael Beck has placed Dr. Walsh on paid administrative leave while the city investigates his sermons.

The story began when the Board of Regents of Pasadena City College asked Dustin Lance Black, a screenwriter and PCC alumnus, to deliver the commencement address at graduation ceremonies on May 9, 2014. The Board reconsidered its decision when it found there were photographs circulating on internet gossip sites of Black, who is homosexual, having sex with his boyfriend. This came on the heels of a revelation that PCC had offered a class on pornography, and that the teacher had invited porn stars to speak to the class, and that the teacher admitted having had sex with his students.

The PCC Board of Regents then asked Dr. Walsh, who has spoken all over the country, including at a national GYC convention, to deliver the commencement address. Dustin Black, meanwhile, argued that the withdrawal of the invitation was intended to shame him for his homosexuality, and urged students to speak out. A group called “Students for Social Justice” began poring over Dr. Walsh's sermons, some of which can be found online at the Altadena SDA Church's website. Many more can be found on YouTube. The “Students for Social Justice” turned up sermons in which Dr. Walsh called homosexuality a sin, called Darwinism a Satanic belief, and denounced Muhammad, the founder of Islam, as having been influenced by Satan.

Critics have decried this passage, from a sermon Dr. Walsh delivered in 2006, as “homophobic”:

In our public school system they began to teach moral relativism. They began to teach that there really is no absolute right or wrong,” he said. “It’s more a matter of what you think or what you accept. And if two adults agree to do something, it’s not wrong because they are both consenting adults. That is doctrine from the pits of hell. What makes something right is not based on man it is based on God.

Dr. Walsh is a graduate of Oakwood University, the University of Miami School of Medicine, and Loma Linda University School of Public Health. He has taught at the LLU School of Public Health and at the University of California, Irvine. Walsh's record as Pasadena Public Health Director includes opening the Michael Antonovich Dental Clinic for HIV-positive patients, yet many believe that his Christian view that homosexual conduct is sinful should exclude him from his city position.

Amid the furor over his sermons, Dr. Walsh canceled his commencement address, citing a scheduling conflict. Remarkably, the PCC Board of Regents then re-invited Dustin Black to give the commencement address, apparently concluding that the pornographic pictures of Black with his gay lover were less scandalous than Dr. Walsh's traditionally Christian views.

This remarkable episode is yet more evidence of how heavy-handed are the enforcers of the new pagan sexual mores. They will try to hound out of public life anyone who holds to revealed truth and Christian sexual morality, and lately they are succeeding more often than they are failing.

The Los Angeles Times has run this story, which was picked up by national internet news aggregator Matt Drudge. The Times also ran this story, along with The Pasadena Star News, which ran the following stories:

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