Ruth Institute Blog

This is absolutely outrageous. The idea of a medical professional not being allowed to pick and choose which clients and which issues she deals with his a clear violation of the First Amendment. We must also ensure that Catholic psychologists are never forced to counsel divorced and remarried people, and that Orthodox Jewish psychologists never have to speak with patients in an interfaith marriage. Likewise, Muslim nutritionists shouldn’t be required to provide assistance to Muslims who consume alcohol or eat pork. Because any exposure to ways of living of which we don’t approve constitutes a violation of our religious liberties. Truly brilliant and insightful commentary, RI.

Freedom of conscience is a bedrock liberty if there ever was one. Forcing someone to violate their conscience in their employment is dangerous to say the least. We have moved away from getting along with each other to forcing a Christian conscience out of the field of employment. The issue is not like forcing Catholic counselors to counsel the divorces and remarried. It is more like forcing them to morally endorse divorce (or abortion or euthanasia or whatever) in the course of their counseling or to brainwash them into accepting it as moral in the course of their education. It looks like re-education camps are coming to education in Eastern Michigan University. There is a secular dogma being produced here. It just isn’t recognized as a dogma. Fortunately, eastern Michigan still has schools than don’t resemble EMU in that regard, e.g. Calvin College, Hope College, etc. It will still be a while before the gay lobby can get their accreditation revoked, but isn’t that the logical extension of this trend?

The university did not require this woman to “morally endorse” gay relationships; it said nothing about changing her personal, inner beliefs. What this case is about is requiring licensed professionals to behave like professionals, and not get to decide which people they deal with, and which people they don’t. If your idea of “freedom of conscience” means never having to confront or speak with a person who doesn’t fit your world-view in the course of your career, then you might need to consider if your conception of “freedom of conscience” is a bit absurd. This woman in entitled to believe whatever she wants; she isn’t entitled to pick and choose which types of situations she deals with and which types she doesn’t, any more than a soldier is allowed to pick and choose which wars he fights and which he doesn’t based on his personal convictions about the morality of the particular conflict. If you’re a medical professional, you have to be willing to learn and abide by medical ethics, which means treating all patients and all problems with respect and, if necessary, setting aside your personal beliefs in the interest of impartial care.

If you are a soldier are you required to kill anyone your commander so orders? No exceptions? Thank you, Lt. Calley, for your definition of professionalism. No conscience exemptions allowed.

It also seems that the individual’s belief system is exactly what is under assault. If she were a Seventh-day Adventist, would you require her to work on Saturday in order to be properly professional?

Leo,
You don’t seem to get it. She went into a field that has as part of being in that field a code of ethics that you must uphold. This was not something that was sprung on her at the last minute. It’s just like a doctor has a code of ethics it must uphold to be certified. As a medical professional she has an obligation to leave her biases at the door. If she was a white supremist would she have the right not to counsel African Americans?

You aren’t required to kill anyone your commander orders because you have already pledged your allegiance to a certain code of conduct that proscribes the killing of unarmed civilians, not because you get to use your own personal beliefs as to who ought to be killed and who ought not. But that’s not relevant to my point. The comparison I made is valid–you don’t get to, as a licensed professional, pick and choose what circumstances you allow yourself to be exposed to and which you don’t.
The seventh-day adventist example is not correctly drawn. This psychology program doesn’t demand that the student herself engage in behavior contrary to her religious beliefs–she doesn’t have to enter into a gay relationship! She merely has to provide impartial, respectful counseling to people whose lives she may not approve of. The TRUE analogy would be a seventh-day adventist being required to counsel a lapsed member of the faith, or a member of another denomination, despite the seventh-day adventist’s personal belief that such religious practices were immoral.

If our military code really prohibited the killing of unarmed civilians, why did we have all those B-52 bombers and ICBM’s aimed at cities? Would you push the button if ordered to?

You are assuming that the professional code should always trump individual conscience, that some moral views (such as affirming certain types of sexual behavior) should trump all other moral views, and that individuals who challenge the professional code should be denied an education. But what if the professional code of ethics is immoral? Doesn’t the individual have a right of conscience, particularly if it is an abstention from action based on conscience? The Hippocratic Oath prohibited doing harm. The Oath has been quietly shelved to permit abortion. Should a doctor or hospital be required to perform abortions on demand? Should someone who refuses to perform abortions be prohibited from obtaining a medical degree? Should the doctor or hospital be denied certification?

The university might have a legal case based on your narrow view that the professional code (set by whom?) must always prevail and dissenters must be denied an education, but that will produce neither a free society nor a moral one.

I’m sorry, but she was in a school counseling program right? As in, working in public schools? You don’t get to pick and choose whom you work with in a public school. I am not entirely sure I agree with the decision to expel her, but realistically, what school would hire a counselor who refuses to counsel gay people? A school wouldn’t hire a counselor who refuses to counsel christians, muslims, jews, asians, etc. So what school would even hire her? Even in a private school, the woman is a lawsuit waiting to happen.

As far as the Hippocratic oath, what about a situation where abortion is needed to prevent the death of the mother. Letting the mother die would be a violation of the oath. Is there scientific proof that life begins at conception? If life beginning at conception is only a religious concept, should non-religious people be required to abide by the beliefs of religion?

Nerdygirl….are you serious: “Is there scientific proof that life begins at conception?” This is Biology 101.
* Living things are made of cells.
* Living things obtain and use energy.
* Living things grow and develop.
* Living things reproduce.
* Living things respond to their environment.
* Living things adapt to their environment.

After conception can that cell turn into anything other than a human?

When life begins has become a political issue.

Forget overturning the “ban on gay marriage.” We should overturn the growing de facto ban on people with traditional views.

The University is wrong.

Their policy, however, is permissable under the Constitution.

Take the emotion out of the constitutional issue and it is plain that the problem is a policy that restricts freedom of conccience for the sake of enforcing a policy that reduces diversity in the name of “diversity”.

The University’s policy provides no accomodation and is instead a means by which to enforce submission, rather than live and let live, on all. The pro-gay bigotry embedded in the enforcement policy is arbitrary, capricious, and provides a very sour basis for future policymaking.

It is like white supremacy, this pernicious gaycentric identity politics, and it distorts all that it touches.

Suppose one decides that one will only counsel members of one’s own faith tradition. That might reasonably limit one’s employment opportunities, but I am not prepared to say it should preclude one from obtaining an education as long as each tradition has access to their own counselors, who in this case would be essentially very sectarian ministers. I don’t think such extreme sectarianism is good. I don’t think it should be unconstitutional or automatic grounds for expulsion.

Time was when homosexuality was considered a mental disorder. Suppose you were a counseling student then and were told that you must consider homosexuality a mental disorder and so act in your counseling, whereas your conscience says you should affirm the patient’s sexual orientation. Which, then should triumph, the prevailing professional opinion of the day or your conscience?

As for abortion, the question is not whether abortion is ever defensible or morally justifiable, the question is can society accommodate both the presumed need for abortion services and the strong moral objection of some people to performing them? There are limits, of course. The public has a reasonable expectation of legal services, but I believe a free and just society can carve out reasonable conscience objections and is freer and more moral for doing so.

In the case at hand, I believe EMU has made a bad decision.

Since when does a public university have to cater to someone’s discriminatory beliefs in a program specifically designed to treat ALL individuals fairly? Why should this school have to endorse HER inability to see others as equal. People should be able to talk to a counselor without passing some kind of morality test by the counselor. Ugh. Keep your personal beliefs out of your professional job, especially when the ethical requirements of your job conflict with your personal beliefs. If she didn’t want to abide by the rules, she shouldn’t have joined the program or gone into the field. I’m sure that some church would be willing to hire her to give religous counseling to people who are looking for that sort of thing. But you don’t get state and national accreditation if you can’t abide by the basic requirements of the profession.

No endorsement. No discriminatory beliefs anyway — not in the absurd sense you mean. And, no, this is not an issue of the student treating others equally but of the school policy being both discriminatory and inequal.

Clients can drop counselors for any or no reason. Finding a good match is part of the process. Acting professionally does not mean the counselor is a doormat or a dispensing machine. To insist otherwise is actually unprofessional and unethical.

As we can see in Heidi’s outlandish remarks above, gay identity politics is not just about live and let live, nope, it is about denying not only education but also accreditation and professional standing to nonbelievers.

But the thought police are not going to tolerate toleration of diversity because, in the name of diversity, all dissent must be stamped out. That’s Heidi’s real message and aspiration.

The pro-gay bigotry is not shy about spraying spittle in the face of liberty and equality.

No Chairm, you’re wrong about me. I fully support one’s liberty and equality. But I do not support treating people differently just because you don’t like something arbitrary about them, like race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, etc. This woman wanted to be a counselor and wanted to train in a specific program. If she wanted to be a “Christianist” counselor, she should have gone to Bible College. Because you cannot fulfill the ethical standards of the profession if you are saying openly that you would not treat all people with dignity and respect. The fact that this woman couldn’t help LGBT people shows that she is incapable of living up to the standards of her chosen profession. It shows that she operates under a cloud of religious bigotry, and her personal biases have no place in the world of therapeutic care. Your counselor’s job is not to pass judgment on you, regardless of his or her personal belief system. That would be an emotionally abusive and inappropriate way of “helping” someone. I’m at least grateful that she was honest about it and the school made this decision before she got into the real world and caused psychological harm to some poor unsuspecting young adult.

In other words, I am all about freedom, but I do not support some kind of “freedom of bigotry.” If you want to believe something so hateful, fine, that’s your choice. But when it escapes from the private to the public, that’s your problem and you should be prepared to deal with the consequences. Keep it in your home, teach it to your children, listen to it at church, but don’t expect the rest of us to have to accommodate such nonsense.

Heidi, in your comments you make superifical nods to liberty but you do not support liberty when it does not fit you identity politics. That’s evident in all that you say — and all that you have said on this blogpost.

Including your comment @ August 14th, 2010 at 19:24: “this woman couldn’t help LGBT people shows that she is incapable of living up to the standards of her chosen profession”.

As I said earlier, finding a good match is part of the process. You want to force all people to publicly bow to your pro-gay bigotry. You get to call them “hateful” even as your own intolerance is on display.

If they don’t bow and scarpe, it will cost them their education and their accreditation. And that, frankly, stands against ethical standards of the counselling profession. It also stands against the ethical standards of the legal and medical professions. Seems not to be an obstacle to your pressing your now-admitted message and aspriation.

You, Heidi, are a walking example of what is wrong with the assertion of the supremacy of gay identity politics.

Regular folks need not have any particular problem — moral or religious or political — with identity politics (of whatever variety) to suddenly find themselves to be the designated public enemy of the zealots of gaycentric supremism.

Even you, Heidi, a stalwart comrade in The Cause, may one day find yourself under the sort of intolerant scrutiny by the very same gaycentric zealots. That sort of thing happened under other versions of identity politics supremacy and unless your brand of supremacy is defeated it will very likely happen again. Till then you will be delusional about your double-standards and incoherent world view.

And once again Chairm, you have failed to make any logical sense. “Pro-gay bigotry?” Really? Is that what you are calling the concept of liberty and equality for all these days? Tell me, does liberty include the freedom to be a racist and the expectation that society should accommodate that point of view? What if this was a white woman and she said that her moral beliefs included the belief that interracial relationships were morally wrong? Should she still be entitled to graduate from this program with the blessing of the institution? The university and the profession are entitled to set the professional standards for counselors. If one cannot meet the standards, they don’t belong in the program. It is really as simple as that. If this woman cannot set aside her religious beliefs in order to treat all individuals the way that a counselor is expected to treat people, then she shouldn’t be in the counseling program.

Yes, I DO think it is hateful when you cannot treat every single person on this planet with dignity, respect and equality. I may not like what you do or say, but so long as you aren’t harming another, I will respect your right to live your own life as you see fit and to be afforded the same rights as everyone else. It’s too bad you can’t seem to do the same.

You show a bigot’s determination to favor your identity group over all others. Your pro-gay bigotry is the glue that holds your SSM argumentation together. It is supremicist.

And, yeap, the assertion of identity supremacy is antithetical to liberty and equality.

Your identity politics is closely analogous with the racialist identity politics you asked me about in your recent comment. Just as society ought to stand against white supremacy, for example, we ought to stand against the gaycentric version of supremacy.

The student met the standards, by any reasonable assessment. The newly skewed application of those standards disfavors the basis for those standards in the first place.

Once again you have confirmed your message and aspriation is to deny education and also accreditation and professional standing to those you consider beneath your identity group; in the name of diversity, all dissent must be stamped out.

The tragic irony is that this was how racial supremacy has typically imposed itself on the education and professional accreditation.

Your advocacy of the application of this policy does not treat people with dignity, respect, and equality.

I’m all for liberty and live-and-let-live. You clearly are also in favor of that — provided that your political gaycentric priorities are given top billing.

Chairm, Sorry, it is your bigotry that is on display. As a medical professional myself, my personal beliefs MUST be set aside for the good of the patient. If I feel I am unable to care for a patient, it is my DUTY to refer to someone who can help.

As a physician, if I held the moral belief that I needed to bleed a patient to balance their humors, I would not expect a medical institute in this day and age to grant me a degree (and SHOULD be sued for malpractice). I am sorry that this student was unable to set aside her own erroneous beliefs to help patients. Its certainly what Jesus did in his day.

Mark, may I ask for clarification on the last point in your comment?

“I am sorry that this student was unable to set aside her own erroneous beliefs to help patients. Its certainly what Jesus did in his day.”

Did you mean that Jesus helped people, or that He put aside his personal feelings when doing so? Jesus was always consistent in his morals and helped others while staying completely true to what he preached. It was through those morals that he was able to help people. He encouraged them to cease doing what was wrong and strive for what was right.

“In the case of Ms. Ward, the university determined that she would never change her behavior and would consistently refuse to counsel clients on matters with which she was personally opposed due to her religious beliefs – including homosexual relationships.”

If she was refusing to counsel clients on “matters with which she was personally opposed” but willing to refer them to other counselors–wouldn’t that fulfill the duty you describe in the first part of your comment?

Mark,

You said: “If I feel I am unable to care for a patient, it is my DUTY to refer to someone who can help.”

That does not contradict what I said. The gist of your remark leans against Heidi’s message and aspiration, as stated in her own words, in her comments above.

Norrie: Jesus was more about the person than what was culturally / religiously acceptable.

To the second point, if the program she was attending required her to work with gays for the learning aspect, and she refused, its like any other student who refuses to fulfill the requirements needed for the degree. When I was in my training, I never intended to be a surgeon but was required to do surgeries on dogs. Did I feel personally opposed to it? No, but I had classmates who were and had to participate anyway.

I see this more as a person who refused to fulfill her part of a legal agreement. She didn’t, and the contract was canceled. If it had been the other way around, an atheistic student having to counsel a Christian and refusing, you would be up in arms. I, on the other hand, would say the same thing: you don’t do the work, you don’t get the degree.

In case it was missed by Mark, Heidi’s goal is to deny education and accreditation so that the person (who felt as Mark described above) would never be in the position to do a referral anyway. This is the beginning of a purge at the earliest entry point into professions and even into education prior to accreditation.