God Doesn't Believe in Professional Standards

Parallel stories in the news, about counseling students who are asked to leave their programs because their religious beliefs preclude them from adhering to professional standards. They're suing, of course. First, via Pam's House Blend, this story:

A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit filed against Eastern Michigan University by a student who was kicked out of its graduate program in school counseling last year for refusing, on religious grounds, to affirm homosexual behavior in serving clients.

In an order granting summary judgment to the university on Monday, Judge George Caram Steeh of the U.S. District Court in Detroit held that the university's requirement that the student be willing to serve people who are homosexual was reasonable, and did not amount to an infringement of the Christian student's constitutional rights to free speech and free expression of religion.

The university "had a right and duty to enforce compliance" with professional ethics rules barring counselors from being intolerant or engaging in discrimination, and no reasonable person could conclude that a counseling program's requirement that students comply with such rules "conveys a message endorsing or disapproving of religion," Judge Steeh wrote.

According to Joe Jervis:

Last year Ward refused to treat a suicidal gay student, telling fellow counselors that her religious views prevented her from helping him feel better about himself.

And now I can't find a link to the second story, but it's almost a repeat: a "Christian" girl suing her school because the counseling program insists that she follow professional standards.

I left a comment on the post at PHB, but it's worth expanding on here. Given that we bend over backward to accommodate religious beliefs in this country, but I think we've gone over the line with allowing pharmacists to refuse to dispense birth control against their religious beliefs, even if we require that the refer a client to another pharmacist: this is a situation ripe for abuse, and people being what they are, they will abuse it.

There comes a point, though, where you have to say to yourself, If my religious beliefs preclude me from engaging in my chosen profession with honesty and integrity, maybe I need to find another profession. I think this is especially true of something like counseling. To put, as this woman does, her (uninformed) belief that homosexuality is a "choice" or a "lifestyle" and a sin, in place of the necessity of offering support and acceptance to a client subverts the basic principles of psychotherapy.

And in spite of the position of ADF, which argued her case, it's not a matter of being forced to abandon her religious beliefs. It's simply the fact that, if she's going to place those beliefs in a primary position of her approach to counseling, she's not fit to practice. I mean, come on -- to refuse to help someone who's suicidal? WTF?

What I'm getting from both these cases is a huge sense of entitlement (which seems to be a necessary corollary of belief systems in which authority hands down absolute and immutable "truth"), and a certain degree of childishness: no one else counts, it's all about me. And that, of course, flies in the face of what counseling is all about: it's about the clients and their well-being. First rule: the client must make the decision to change his or her behavior. The counselor's beliefs are irrelevant. To impose them on vulnerable people who need real help is, in a very real sense, immoral.

Gah! The whole thing makes me crazy. Fortunately, the judge in this case wasn't hoodwinked.