A Loma Linda University Medical Center (LLUMC) policy, which calls for discipline or dismissal of employees engaging in sex outside marriage, is not discriminatory, say university officials.  The comments follow news reports suggesting that LLUMC’s sexual standards policy could amount to discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

“Our policy is applied consistently throughout the complex, without regard to sexual orientation,” says Augustus Cheatham, a university vice president.

“This is an institution that is owned and operated by the Seventh-day Adventist Church and our employees play a front-line role in the center’s healing ministry,” he says. “Our employee sexual behavior policy reflects the core values that drive the day-to-day mission of the medical center.”

Under amendments to the California Fair Employee and Housing Act, effective since January 2000, church-affiliated hospitals in that state no longer have a complete exemption from a general law that prohibits employment discrimination.

The Sexual Standards Policy approved by the Loma Linda University Board of Trustees in 1997, requires faculty, staff, administration, trustees and students of the university “in their teaching, influence and example, to uphold Christian sexual standards as held by the Seventh-day Adventist Church.”  Cheatham says that this policy is implemented institution-wide.

Loma Linda University Medical Center, established by the Adventist Church in 1905, is internationally renowned for its cutting-edge medical research and treatments in areas such as heart transplant surgery and non-invasive proton beam therapy for prostate and breast cancer.  In its mission statement, LLUMC affirms that its purpose is to continue the “healing ministry of Jesus Christ” within “a setting of advancing medical science.”