(response to christian counselor getting fired for refusing to help a lesbian client.)
This really takes the cake. Being honest, and indicating that your beliefs would make it difficult to maintain any professional objectivity, and referring to someone else, somehow a tort?
Just more evidence of the heavy politicization of our system of legal jurisprudence. And, in any proceeding like this, what will more often than not determine the outcome, is not the facts and the law per se, but which presiding judge and/or venue specific demographics (i.e. from which is drawn the jury pool) it will be "shopped" to. Get Sekulow and the Heritage foundation? Absolutely!
When do we get to sue when discriminated against by CHRISTOPHOBIA?
50 comments
At least the counselor was honest, and did what was ethically correct in referring the girl to another counselor.
The fundy shit comes in when the poster takes that honesty and ethical behavior as, somehow, anti-Christian.
"Being honest, and indicating that your beliefs would make it difficult to maintain any professional objectivity"
If those beliefs are "you are a terrible person who cannot control the reason why I hate you but I will only look at you as a decent human being if you do not have that trait", then yes, you have lost all objectivity. It would be the same if you believed that all short people eat babies and that people with clinical retardation should be executed for the good of society. You are certainly allowed to hold those beliefs, but they will make you ineffective at treating those people. And, expressing those beliefs...well...it borders on tacit threats aside from just expressing what is, for all intents and purposes, mindless bigotted hatred.
Also: whaa, whaa, persecution.
"The REAL problem here is CHRISTOPHOBIA!"
Umm, actually the real problem is that the counselor WASN'T DOING THEIR JOB!
To the lesbian client, I would ask if you really expected any sort of constructive advice from a woman who thinks you're going to Hell for being a lesbian.
Yes, if her religion prevents her from doing her job properly, she should go find another job. But at the same time, she did you a favor.
So she discriminated against a homosexual and got fired for not doing her job, so therefore that's discrimination against christianity?
She didn't get fired because she was a christian she got fired for discriminating and loosing a customer.
Never. You never get to sue, because you are never discriminated against.
Also, counselors have the cushiest jobs in the world. All they have to do is sit there and nod like idiots while people unload their problems.
If she can't manage that just because her client is gay, then she should find a new career. Like flipping burgers
Actually, I'm a little confused...
In this state any health professional can refuse a patient as long as they refer them to someone else. Yes, I unfortunately know of a OB/GYN who refuses to prescribe birth control or do abortions, but she is required *by law* to hand them directions to several other Drs in the area that do should a patient ask.
Now the whole CHRISTOPHOBIA thing... I refer to the bumpersticker: God protect me from your followers!
Apparently the counselor simply referred this client to another counselor.
Isn't that what a counselor is supposed to do when, for whatever reason, unable to maintain proper professional distance? I mean, in this case, isn't making the referral actually part of the job?
News articles also indicate that the client wanted counseling regarding a same-sex relationship. Given that the counselor had strong feelings on that issue, I'd think it would be virtually impossible to maintain a professional distance from the issue. So basically, it's an emotional conflict of interest.
But she didn't simply deny all possible aid. She referred the client to someone else. Someone that just maybe could maintain that professional distance. That's totally the right thing to do.
I have to say I'm on the counselor's side here. She should not have been fired.
Of course WhitemoonG's take on it is typical fundie persecution complex garbage. So I suppose that belongs here. :-P
"When do we get to sue when discriminated against by CHRISTOPHOBIA?"
When it actually exists. Which it doesn't; you're a priveleged majority, not a persecuted minority, so shut the fuck up.
Despite the homophobia, I'm on the counsellor's side. She did what was ethically right in a situation where she couldn't be objective. Personally, I'm of the opinion that if you have that large of a discrimination built into you, you shouldn't be in a career where the point of your job is to not be judgemental , but she shouldn't have been fired over that. If she'd refused all help, yes, but the counsellor referred the would-be patient elsewhere.
But this person is being a moron. The counsellor wasn't fired because she was Christian; she was fired for refusing a patient on grounds of sexual orientation.
The REAL problem here is CHRISTOPHOBIA!
To be fair, you guys spent two thousand years killing heretics and unbelevers.
from the client's point of view, I can see worries about being referred on because of her sexuality: how is she to know that other counsellors won't be equally prejudiced but not admit it?
A bit rough on the counsellor though, her honesty was laudable, telling a client that her beliefs made her unable to deal with said client wasn't - replace "lesbian" with "black" and you get the picture. If she'd said "my colleague is better suited due to more experience" then that would have been OK.
She was not kicked for being Christian but for refusing to serve a client. When you become a counsellor, you have subscribe to help others without discrimination. If you "are not of this world" be consequent and don't be both a counsellor and a Christian(judge not least you'd be judged. Healthy people don't need doctors)
I do think the counselor did the right thing in referring them away. But i definately dont think you can replace lesbian with black...thats a whole different situation, but the fundie response deserves to be here..why havent you all moved to england and left USA to the christians like we did 300 years ago..
If she was within her rights as a counsellor not to extend counselling to someone whose actions she disagrees with, surely her bosses were within their rights as employers not to extend employment for the same reason?
As usual, the fundies are whining for rights for themselves that they do not wish others to have.
Do unto others...
You guys do realize, right, the counselors are people, too: they have prejudices and blind spots and misconceptions just like everyone else. That particular counselor had enough self-awareness to recognize this fact, and so she referred the client to someone else. That’s a far better thing than what could have happened.
Assuming that’s all there was to the story, she probably shouldn’t have been fired.
So us hating your homophobia somehow makes us bigots against Christians? What?
I agree with the others who said that the counselor was right to have referred the client to someone else, but this quote about the situation is ridiculous...
When do we get to sue when discriminated against by CHRISTOPHOBIA?
When you're denied a job, housing, exercise of political rights, etc. because of your religion.
Then you SHOULD sue, because that's against the law.
Seriously, a little education can go a long way--we've got all kinds of books, magazines and newspapers. Please, fundies, give them a try.
Referred the patient to another counselor? Then what, exactly, is the problem? We can't castigate fundies for attempting to force their beliefs on others, then turn around and say our beliefs should take precedence in a patient-counselor relationship.
@Lithp:
Dude, everyone has issues on which they can't be objective. That's why judges, counselors, doctors, and other such professionals that require a certain level of objectivity are usually allowed to step back from a given case and hand it off to a colleague.
There'd be no counselors at all if only people that had a perfectly objective viewpoint regarding every possible client were permitted to do the job.
I love how people cram in as many large words as possible in the hopes of forcing people into the "tl;dr, so smile and nod" phase.
Eff off.
I'm all for making people do their fucking job, especially as it relates to pharmacists.
You might say, "Well, they can refer those they disagree with to another pharmacist." What happens when the nearest pharmacist who will fill your birth control prescription is three states away? Yeah, that shit won't fly.
There are legitimate reasons to recuse yourself, and then there's "OMG GAYS ICKY". Guess which one this dipshit counselor chose?
"When do we get to sue when discriminated against by CHRISTOPHOBIA?
Probably when you're reduced to a mere 10% or less minority in this country, when children of your kind are beaten up and bullied to death, when you don't have equal rights to practice your faith (WITHOUT persecuting others), when people start saying "that's Christian" to refer to something uncool, when we find evidence that Christians got the worst of the Nazi Holocaust, when a very slight majority takes away your right to marry, when people unanimously moan in digust when the word "Christian" is muttered, when you're being bashed, tortured, robbed, simply for being Christian, when the majority of this country believes Christians are going to hell.
When all these things happen then maybe, just maybe you can sue. Until then...
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I am with Painful and several others. A counselor or therapist who, for whatever reason, cannot work with a particular client is ethically and legally obligated to refer the client out. Which leads me to two hypotheses:
1) There is more to this story than we are hearing (i.e. the therapist first tried to evangelize the client, a definite no-no)
2) The therapist tried to convince the client that her real problem was that she was a lesbian
3) The whole story is made up
Oh, and the "christophobia" angle, that's just stupid.
Suffering for your religion is supposed to be something YOU do. There's no virtue attached in making somebody else do your suffering for you. This idiot did both; made the client suffer, and then lost the job. If he did it right, he would have voluntarily resigned from that job that he was obviously unwilling to perform.
Religions deserve rights only as far as they don't hinder or at least don't interfere with the goals of a scientifically progressive society. Shouldn't be too hard if theists mind their business. Most already do.
Unconditional religious freedom as a human right is flawed.
Cults - another example that usually needs to be combated. Cults are basically a bad religion.
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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