Based on events alleged to have taken place at Augusta State University, Augusta, Georgia.
DISGUSTA, Ga. — Attorneys with the National Uncivil Liberties League (NULL) filed suit against Disgusta State University Wednesday on behalf of a counseling professor told that her beliefs are unethical and incompatible with the prevailing views of the counseling profession. The professor, Dr. Julia Charrington, has been told to stop sharing her beliefs with others and that she must change her beliefs to remain on the counseling program’s faculty.
NULL senior attorneys underlined the seriousness of the situation: “Our dearest American liberties are at risk if we won’t let professors impose their anti-religiousness and pro-homosexuality on students against their will.”
Disgusta State ordered Charrington to undergo a re-education plan, in which she must attend “diversity sensitivity training,” complete additional remedial reading, and write papers to describe their impact on her beliefs. If she does not change her beliefs or agree to the plan, the university says it will remove her from the Counselor Education faculty.
Other professors learned of Charrington’s views on religion and homosexual conduct, specifically that:
- Homosexuality is an unrestricted good
- Freedom of sexuality trumps freedom of religion
- Sexual behavior is by no means a matter of accountable choice
- Persons are not born male or female; they become that way by of social conditioning; and especially
- Persons who disagree, especially those who disagree for religious reasons, must not be allowed to enter the counseling profession.
“A public university professor shouldn’t be threatened with termination just for insisting that students drop all their moral values and religious beliefs, but that’s exactly what’s happening here. Simply put, the university is imposing thought reform,” said NULL, through a spokesman-woman-person-whose-gender-had-not-been-quite-socially-settled-yet. “Allowing students to hold their own religious beliefs should not be a precondition for employment at a public university. This type of zero-tolerance policy is in place at far too many universities, and it must stop. Dr. Charrington’s only crime was to have the beliefs that she does.”
The re-education plan assails Charrington’s beliefs as inconsistent with the counseling profession and expresses suspicion over her “ability to demonstrate multicultural competence in counseling, particularly with regard to working with non-gay, non-lesbian, non-bisexual, non-transgender, and non-queer/questioning (nGnLnBnTnQ) populations, as well as religious populations.” The plan requires her to take steps to change her beliefs through additional assignments and additional “diversity sensitivity training.” It also orders her to “work to increase exposure and interactions with non-gay populations. One such activity could be attending the Non-Gay Pride Parade in Disgusta.”
In her defense, Charrington offered the example of Augusta State University, also in Georgia, where her beliefs are allegedly not only tolerated but are actually required. “From what I’ve heard, Augusta State has a grand tradition of believing what I believe, and even requiring students to believe the same,” she said. “If it’s true, then they’ve set the standard for barring students’ freedom of religion. In view of that kind of model, it’s manifestly unfair for Disgusta State not to let me insist that all students here think only the things I say they must think!”
In case you missed it: yes, if reports linked here are true, there is what appears to be a real story behind this satire.
Also at Thinking Christian
July 23rd, 2010 | 2:28 pm | #1
That was a terrific first sentence.
It just sets up the mood for Developing an Ethical Orientation Through the Narrative Imagination.
July 23rd, 2010 | 9:36 pm | #2
That was quite elegant, but why be so polite?
http://evangelicalperspective.blogspot.com/2010/07/by-any-other-name-reeducation.html
July 24th, 2010 | 5:43 am | #3
I think your post nailed it for its outrageousness, Collin. I was hoping mine would show how illogical—thus, hypocritical—it is to expel Christian beliefs in the name of diversity. (Jennifer Keeton was threatened with expulsion. Her beliefs were not threatened; they have already been summarily expelled.)
If I conveyed the impression this doesn’t anger me, then I should have written it differently. What they’ve done, if these reports are accurate, is wrong and it’s completely reprehensible. Whoever the “Julia Charrington” there might be, that professor ought to be fired. I hope she can find NULL help.
July 24th, 2010 | 6:12 am | #4
Collin, I see your blog post links to another source on the Jennifer Keeton case. It’s from a homosexual advocacy source, OutQNews. (It’s associated with Sirius XM radio, which makes me very uninterested in ever subscribing to that service.)
This article ends with a statement from the university. Surprisingly, I agree with it to a great extent, though not at all the way they intended it.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with sexual orientation. I agree. Sexuality is a good thing, and everyone with any sexuality has their own inclinations. (“Sexual orientation” seems to be a relatively new construct and in some ways problematical. I’ll finesse that issue by regarding it as synonymous with inclinations.)
I don’t consider homosexuality (or the rest of the GLBTQ pentacle) an illness. For one thing, I do not fully subscribe to what the mental health profession calls the “medical model” for behavorial issues. More importantly, homosexuality is one form of temptation to sin. Heterosexual desires are sometimes a temptation to sin, but in the context of marriage they are a draw toward loving oneness and procreation. Homosexuality, in contrast, is never a draw toward anything but extra-marital sex, which is always sin.
Homosexuality needs a spiritual solution first of all: rescue from the penalty of sin. (That’s not so if the person has never given in to the temptation, but how often is that the case?) That’s not a “treatment.” It’s the gift of God through Jesus’ death on the cross.
The person so tempted then needs deliverance from the power of the temptation. Whether that means changing their orientation or learning to trust God with living a chaste life, that deliverance is also primarily a spiritual matter. The Bible tells us to turn to one another for deep support when we are dealing with deep matters. Some people might find that support through a professional counselor. If they want to call that “treatment” I wouldn’t quibble over the word with them, but it’s really spiritual/relational support.
July 24th, 2010 | 9:44 am | #5
Collin Brendemuehl in his post: “The ultimate blackmail. Thanks, liberals. It seems Obama & Friends really are transforming the fabric of the nation”
Tom Gilson: “I think your post nailed it for its outrageousness, Collin.”
—————–
Collin: “That was quite elegant, but why be so polite?”
Collin, wasn’t Jesus always polite to the Pharisees and their man-made rules?
July 24th, 2010 | 12:27 pm | #6
I am with Collin on this. The gay rights activists want nothing less than complete acceptance, not tolerance. This means the State will promote and normalize homosexuality and anyone who dares to question this, particularly Christians, will start to suffer consequences for doing so. The Obama Administration is advancing the gay rights agenda on every conceivable front.
This also raises a larger issue of those Christians who are helping to advance this agenda by support those, politically, who are making this agenda realized. For in supporting those, namely, Liberal/Progressive politicians, a context is being set up to justify the persecution of Christians. This is likely going to be a major issue in our churches in the future as I see widespread unwillingness to confront this.
http://www.bluecollarphilosophy.com/2010/07/christian-counseling-student-must-be-re.html
July 24th, 2010 | 6:54 pm | #7
Here’s another good one:
http://endablog.wordpress.com/2010/07/24/sorry-christianists-but-where-your-mythological-delusions-collide-with-reality-reality-prevails/
July 24th, 2010 | 7:21 pm | #8
Did you notice, Collin, that the “enda” in “endablog” stands for “Employment Non-Discrimination Act”? It reeks of many things, one of which is amazingly un-self-aware, oblivious irony.
The post to which you have linked says the school’s position is supported by, among other things, “reality-based law.” Which reality? Is there some reality in which homosexuality has been proven morally good? On what basis? The usual reason for approving it is that we ought to be tolerant. There’s some really putrid irony there: did tolerance extend to Jennifer Keeton?
And what law is it that supports the school? I can’t think of any. Am I missing something obvious here? It seems to me there’s a law supporting religious freedom. I know, I know, maybe that’s easy to miss, too. I mean, it’s placed rather obscurely in the Bill of Rights of both the U.S. and Georgia Constitutions.
Well, maybe the real reason Jennifer Keeton ought not to be allowed to continue in her counseling program is because she hasn’t been appropriately respectful of others. Maybe she would do better following the high standards of that blog author, who employed such tolerant language as,
Another word for irony in a context like this is hypocrisy. What a stench.
July 25th, 2010 | 10:58 am | #9
Ya, I get a laugh out of leftists and their lackies.
July 25th, 2010 | 2:58 pm | #10
Tom Gilson: “Another word for irony in a context like this is hypocrisy. What a stench.”
Yep, there certainly is the stench of hypocrisy.
Collin Brendemuehl: “Ya, I get a laugh out of leftists and their lackies.”
Too bad there are lackies for the secular leftists in Christian churches.
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