In a situation almost identical to the one I described yesterday, Julea Ward was booted from the counseling program at Eastern Michigan University because she refused to counsel gay persons on matters of homosexuality due to her religious convictions.  The case went to court, and a federal judge ruled on behalf of the university!!  This is quite scary.  We are living in a country in which the academy is actively discriminating against those with certain moral convictions and it is being approved by the justice system.  Talk about calling evil “good” and good “evil.”

UPDATE 1/27/12: The Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has reversed this decision, and sent the case back to the lower court. They wrote: “A university cannot compel a student to alter or violate her belief systems based on a phantom policy as the price for obtaining a degree…. Why treat Ward differently? That her conflict arose from religious convictions is not a good answer; that her conflict arose from religious convictions for which the department at times showed little tolerance is a worse answer. … Ward was willing to work with all clients and to respect the school’s affirmation directives in doing so. That is why she asked to refer gay and lesbian clients (and some heterosexual clients) if the conversation required her to affirm their sexual practices. What more could the rule require? Surely, for example, the ban on discrimination against clients based on their religion (1) does not require a Muslim counselor to tell a Jewish client that his religious beliefs are correct if the conversation takes a turn in that direction and (2) does not require an atheist counselor to tell a person of faith that there is a God if the client is wrestling with faith-based issues. Tolerance is a two-way street. Otherwise, the rule mandates orthodoxy, not anti-discrimination.”  Good for them!