Posted on 02/22/2011 11:18:40 AM PST by Kaslin
Christians, orthodox Jews or anyone with traditional views of sex and marriage should be barred from state university counseling programs unless they agree to violate their beliefs.
That’s the gist of the amicus brief that the ACLU filed on Feb. 11 in a case in which a Christian student is challenging her dismissal from a graduate counseling program at Eastern Michigan University in 2009.
Julea Ward had asked that another student take the case of a homosexual suffering from depression because, being a Christian, she could not affirm the person’s sexual relationships. Miss Ward was dismissed, and filed a lawsuit charging unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination, religious discrimination and compelled speech. On July 26, 2010, a U.S. District Court denied her claim, and she appealed to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals.
The ACLU’s brief to the appeals court contends that compelling someone to act against her beliefs does not violate her freedoms of religion or speech. They quote the university’s finding that Ward had a “conflict between your values that motivate your behavior and those behaviors expected of your profession.” In other words, you’re a conscientious Christian, so get lost.
This is one of several cases in which Christians have been told to conform to “diversity” requirements or leave counseling programs. At Augusta State University in Georgia, Jennifer Keeton sued in 2010 after being told she had to take re-education courses to counter her Christian morality or be expelled from a master’s program. Losing in a U.S. District Court, she has appealed to the 11th Circuit.
In the Michigan case, the ACLU’s brief rests heavily on the American Counseling Association’s (ACA) Code of Ethics, which prohibits discrimination based on “sexual orientation” and a dozen other characteristics. Julea Ward contends that the code allows referrals to other counselors in situations such as hers.
The brief cites last year’s egregious U.S. Supreme Court ruling (Christian Legal Society vs. Martinez) that upheld the (Berkeley) Hastings College of Law’s decision to eject a Christian legal group for not allowing open homosexuals in leadership positions. Writing for the majority in that case, Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said:
“Condemnation of same-sex intimacy is, in fact, a condemnation of gay people,” and “our decisions have declined to distinguish between status and conduct in this context.”
By this reasoning, if you don’t support gluttony, you “condemn” overweight people. Let’s take this apart some more. If, as former ACLU attorney Ginsburg says, conduct defines status, and the ACA’s code says counselors must conform to what amounts to a positive or neutral view of sex outside marriage, then Christians must conduct themselves in a way that violates their beliefs. Their status becomes that of either outlaws or liars.
This is not rocket science. We are witnessing a radical elite bent on replacing natural law with a wholly different set of values, which is what Justice Antonin Scalia said about the legal profession in his Romer v. Evans (1996) and Lawrence v. Texas (2003) dissents.
Many professional associations have climbed aboard this runaway train. If this trend is not halted, the result will be a world full of signs that say, “Christians need not apply.” Just ask Catholic hospitals that are being told to perform abortions – or else.
The underlying problem in the Michigan counseling case is twofold: First, there is no credible scientific evidence that homosexuality, unlike race, such as Julea Ward’s African-American heritage, is in-born and unchangeable. As Colin Powell once pointed out, comparison of race with sexual orientation is “convenient but invalid.” Second, the Constitution explicitly protects religious freedom but is silent on “sexual orientation,” a term concocted in the 20th century as a bludgeon against Judeo-Christianity morality.
So, in the name of the U.S. Constitution, an African-American woman who believes in biblical morality is barred as an unfit bigot from a program that is supposed to teach counselors how to encourage healthy behaviors. On the other hand, people who affirm deviation regardless of consequences face no such sanction.
This is sort of upside-down nonsense is not new, of course. The apostle Paul warned about perversely proud men whose “foolish hearts were darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools….God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting.” (Romans 1:22, 28)
The ACLU says the university is making an important ethical distinction. It sure is. Whereas Ms. Ward draws from the Western moral tradition that inspired the U.S. Constitution, the university’s ethics are based on the cause de jour in liberal faculty lounges.
The bottom line is that forcing Ms. Ward (or Ms. Keeton) to pretend to buy into the Left’s pansexual dystopia is supposed to be a reasonable action. If so, then anyone with traditional religious beliefs can be barred from a state institution if they fail to betray their beliefs.
This is no longer remotely about tolerance or civil rights. It’s about turning the nation’s moral values upside down so that wrong is right and right is hate.
The agents of radical change have hijacked the God-given, unalienable rights that were codified precisely to protect people like Julea Ward from unjust discrimination. As the public sector expands, they are bankrupting the nation and moving us closer to the criminalization of Christianity.
In the short run, they must be met with superior legal and political forces. Long term, we must radically reduce the public sector to where it can no longer threaten American liberty.
bump
You know, that is what the Roman Empire told us, too. IIRC, it didn’t go well for them after that.
Good grief. She refrained from counseling the depressed homosexual to seek help. Instead, she just asked to be taken off the case.
THAT is grounds for giving her the boot? Just saying, “Let someone else do it”?
She should have put on a hajib and claimed it violated her Muslim faith and they would have moved her to a different case in a New York Muzzie Minute.
“Condemnation of same-sex intimacy is, in fact, a condemnation of gay people,”...
Are Christians condemning gays or merely pointing out that they're no different from anyone else--sinners, forgiven or otherwise. Are Christians now prohibited from marriage counseling too because they might cast a frown on adulterous behavior....? I guess some sins are more equal than others in the world of man. All depends on how powerful your lobby is.
Brrr, this could go either way.
I think any government backed institution should be required to make any reasonable accommodation to the religious scruples of a student. The key word being reasonable — you don’t want programs turned completely upside down to suit, say, sharia law, but omitting the “gay affirmative” stuff from a general-purpose counseling program for those who can’t do that in good conscience would be reasonable. The alternative would seem to be to freeze faithful Christians and Jews completely out of the discipline, which is absurd (but what the lefties would just love to do).
Alas, trashy thinkers like Ginsburg on the USSC can do immense mischief. Their palpably false premises become enshrined in case law as though they were gospel.
Julea should've taken the case and counseled the patient that his/her depression would likely subside if he/she stopped acting on his/her perverted impulses and started following the commandments given in the Bible. She should've told the sufferer to give it the old college try for a while just to see what happens.
Exactly— how many Muslims are being asked about their thoughts on homosexuality?
I dare the politically correct SOBs to try this with a moslem.
Sometimes even approximating the truth can get you in dutch. It could have been even worse. Suppose she had accepted the person and, after some probing questions to find out exactly what was going on, told the homo that his(?) habits were contributing to his depression. They’d have run her out of town on a rail.
why, why, WHY do people get into school programs they KNOW are going to be in direct conflict with their belief system...In counseling, you are going to have to deal with all kinds of different crap, this is common knowledge and common sense... similar actions include:
going into a strip club for a drink and complaining about the nudity.
moving into a home at the end of an airport runway, and complaining about the noise.
moving next to an active landfill and complaining about the smell.
Now, if this program is required to graduate from this school, then it needs to be eliminated. Unless this is the case, then the person caught up in this is a blithering idiot with no common sense, or a sense of reality....really
They had a reasonable alternative there, referring the client to another therapist. I see no reason that she cannot become a therapist. If she opens her own business she has the right to refuse service to anyone.
This is simply discrimination based on religion which a public institute accepting public funds cannot do. I say this as a deist.
I dare the politically correct SOBs to try this with a moslem.Since muzzies and commies are sworn allies in the War Against The West, the commies would never try this with a muzzie.
Muzzies and commies are working together and don't spend any time trying to trip each other up.
I think most counselors, especially liberals, are voyeurs. They get their jollies off listening to freakish and deviant situations. They are over paid amateur Dear Abby’s without her talent, wit or entertainment value. Their mission is to make people feel good by condoning their stupid choices.
Do we really need grief counselors, sexual orientation conselors and similar voyeurs funded by state institutions?
Oh yes, God==bad, mankind== good. Plus if you even dare believe in a Christian God, you are a lower class citizen, so dont expect any rights
I think the school was severely overreacting—this small hangup was no reason to kick her out of the program. Kicking her out looks very bad for them if they’re trying to claim any motive except prejudice against the woman’s religion.
That said, her professors are right to be concerned about how her attitude might affect her career. If you know you’re going to have too many moral “dealbreakers” with potential clients, it doesn’t mean you’re a evil, bigoted person—it just means you probably shouldn’t be a clinical counselor. Regardless of your beliefs, you have to be able to put aside a great deal of judgment in that profession. This woman’s services might be better suited to religious counseling programs than to the general public. She’s going to meet lots of people whose lifestyles go against her religion in one way or another, and if she wants to make a living as a clinical counselor, she’ll have to learn to professionally tolerate some things even without personally endorsing them. Quite simply, if you’re going to refer every client who isn’t a perfect Christian to someone else, you won’t have any business.
I’m no expert in counseling, and even I know there are many ways to help a depressed person who happens to be gay that don’t require affirming his homosexual behavior. It’s the liberals who want you to believe gays have no identity beyond their sexuality, and that gay people’s lives would be perfectly happy if not for the evil, intolerant Christian right objecting to their lifestyle.
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