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Michigan Lawmakers Weigh In on Counselor-Training Controversy

May 5, 2011, 9:16 pm

Both chambers of the Michigan Legislature have passed measures intended to discourage school-counselor training programs at public universities from requiring their students to be willing to serve gay clients. Tucked into separate appropriations bills approved by Michigan’s House of Representatives on Thursday and its Senate last month are provisions requiring public universities to file annual reports on their efforts to accommodate the religious beliefs of students enrolled in such programs. Although the provisions do not explicitly mention Eastern Michigan University, lawmakers told the Detroit Free Press that Republicans in both chambers proposed the reporting requirement in response to a controversial 2009 decision by Eastern Michigan’s counseling program to expel a student who refused, on religious grounds, to affirm homosexual behavior in serving clients. The student, Julea Ward, has appealed a federal judge’s dismissal of her lawsuit accusing the university of violating her constitutional rights.

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  • kelcata

    What is a bigger sin, being gay or committing a crime like rape or murder? As a counselor, you work with all types of people. If students were allowed to discriminate against gay patients based on religious views, where would the discrimination stop? As a counselor you are supposed to be able to put your own beliefs aside to help the patient. Anyone who can’t do that won’t make a very good counselor and probably shouldn’t be in the counseling field.

  • corwinamber

    The legislators should be ashamed. I imagine prior to the civil war they would have frowned on teaching people that slavery in the south should not be tolerated, since it was protected by the constitution.

  • gbayloradf

    The Chronicle’s short item and some of the comments conflate two distinct things: categorically refusing to counsel homosexual people, and declining to affirm homosexual behavior. Julea Ward did not refuse to counsel homosexuals; instead, she expressed reservations about being required to *approve* same-sex sexual intimacy. Indeed, her reservations were not about homosexual conduct per se, but rather about all sexual behavior that runs counter to traditional Christian sexual ethics, including adultery and pre-marital sexual intimacy. The question is whether a public university should expel a student for declining, as a matter of religious conscience, to *affirm* certain behaviors. Surely a nation dedicated to religious liberty can accommodate conscientious objectors like Julea Ward.

  • akprof

    The people who should be setting standards for various porfessional groups should be individuals who are members of those professions – how many Michigan lesislators are credentialed as professional counselors?

  • willamette

    My home state’s legislature has been a joke since the election of John Engler. Both houses are littered with closed minded, derivative and reactionary politicians who can’t chase the latest right-wing fad fast enough. I never thought I’d ever be saying this but I ache for the days of a Republican like Bill Milliken.

  • goxewu

    Gbaylor’s is sophistry of the first order. Nobody accused Ms. Ward of categorically refusing to counsel homosexual people, presumably about problems unrelated to their homosexuality; she refused to “affirm” same-sex sexual intimacy in the sense that she refused her not making her a priori disapproval of homosexual practice known to those gay people she might be counseling. Also going against her Christianity would be denying that Jesus was the divinely appointed savior of all humanity (which gets one condemned to hell, right?), so she might also “refuse to affirm” to counsel Jews and Hindus without expressing disapproval of their religious beliefs.

    Ah, you say, but there’s a Constitutional Amendment protecting freedom of religion. Yes, and there’s also a body of laws having passed Constitutional muster in the courts preventing discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. And, as far as I know, same-sex intimacy is not against the law in Michigan.

    Look at it this way: A black person comes in for counseling and the initially assigned counselor says can’t counsel that person because that person’s skin bears “the mark of Cain,” which the counselor refuses to “affirm.”

    “Surely a nation dedicated to religious liberty can accommodate conscientious objectors like [the counselor above].”

  • jcisneros

    This is not anything as noble as conscientious objection.

    Are professors allowed to not teach people who do not agree with their religious or political views? No. Professors must take all students regardless of their beliefs.

    This is about professional ethics. Perhaps Ms. Ward would be happier in another field where she has the luxury of ignoring things like professional and ethical behavior. I view this exactly the same way I view a pharmacist or medical professional who refuses to treat a patient for some reason other than lacking professional qualifications. In the 1980′s medical doctors, nurses, and physicians assistants walked out and refused to treat AIDS patients, such behavior was unconscionable then and it is unconscionable now. Bigotry is no excuse for refusing to counsel or treat a patient.

    She absolutely deserved to be run out of the program. Medical professionals are held to a higher standard for a reason. You get no sympathy from me, nor does she.

    ~J

  • http://hiresteve.com/ Steve Foerster

    Hmm.  Never ascribe to malice what can be adequately explained by misunderstanding, I suppose.

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