North Carolina sheriff’s deputy alleges he was fired for following the ‘Billy Graham Rule’

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A former North Carolina sheriff’s deputy is suing for religious discrimination after he was fired in 2017 for refusing to train a female deputy alone because she was not his wife.

Manuel Torres said he was fired by the Lee County Sheriff’s Office after he was instructed to train a female deputy, but he ultimately decided he could not obey the request because it violated his Christian belief that as a married man he could not be alone with someone other than his wife, also known as the “Billy Graham Rule.”

The Rev. Billy Graham, who passed away at 99 in February 2018, advocated for men not to be alone with any woman whom they were not married to.

According to the lawsuit, Torres would have had to spend time alone with the woman for “significant periods of time.”

The Charlotte Observer reported that Torres requested in July 2017 to be excused from training the female deputy, but the sheriff’s office refused to comply. After two months, a superior officer “expressed his anger” that Torres had asked multiple times to be exempt from training her.

Torres alleged that he was fired not too long after the officer lamented his frustrations, with no explanation why. He also asserted in the lawsuit that other law enforcement agencies decided not to hire him after hearing about his incident with the Lee County Sheriff’s Office.

BuzzFeed News reported that Torres is thought to be the first person to cite the “Billy Graham Rule” while claiming religious discrimination.

Torres named Lee County Sheriff Tracy Lynn Carter as a defendant in the case, as well as the towns of Siler City and Apex, where he sought to be hired following the incident in Lee County.

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