Someone is Doing Their Job

As a lawyer, it is nice to see courts doing their job, in this case the Federal 6th Circuit Court of Appeals. 


Julea Ward was getting her masters in counseling at Eastern Michigan University. She was asked to counsel a gay couple about their relationship and since this involved affirming their gay views, it violated her religious beliefs. She followed her department policy and arranged for another counselor to take the case. For this she was thrown out of school despite having a near perfect record. 


The 6th Circuit was not amused. The court asked if a Muslim counselor would be asked to counsel a Jew that his Judaism was the true faith or would an atheist be required to tell a Christian that God was real? Probably not, so what the Sam Hill was EMU thinking here? The best line in the opinion exposes the reality at the heart of this case:


“Tolerance is a two-way street. Otherwise, the rule mandates orthodoxy, not anti-discrimination.”


I couldn't agree more. Rigidly-enforced orthodoxy is exactly what you find in universities and colleges all across this country. It is way past time for this abuse of the First Amendment rights of believers to come to a screeching halt and I commend the 6th Circuit for taking the Constitution seriously. 




townhall.com/columnists/mikeadams/2012/02/06/eloquence_in_defense_of_liberty