A little bit of religious bigotry is tolerable in a healthy society (Porter | The Guardian)

[struggle4progress]

Henry Porter
The Observe
Sunday 2 May 2010

The first thing you want to ask about Gary McFarlane, the man who lost his case against unfair dismissal from Relate because he refused to counsel gay couples, is whether a fundamentalist Christian heterosexual with strongly held views about homosexuality was necessarily the best person to give advice on gay sex. The second is why it didn't occur to McFarlane before he signed up with Relate, which advertises courses on counselling gays, lesbians and bisexuals, that his religious beliefs might prove an obstacle ...

Even an atheist like me understands that religious conviction is as vitally important to some people as sexual orientation is to most of us ...

Is this really such a terrible thing, given that he would almost certainly be lousy at advising gay couples? Of course, if he was to go around whipping up hatred against gays, that would be different, but he simply said he would prefer not to do something and I cannot see that he is causing any harm by quietly making that choice. We should allow for these prejudices if they don't affect the lives of others for the good reason that court cases and the sort of legislation against speech crimes proposed by the last government will not make them go away. I wonder why Relate didn't work round his views but perhaps a rather prim correctness suggested that he was not the person to be doing counselling of any kind, which is why his case ended up with the activist judge ...

... The rights of gay people to receive counselling and to be treated equally under the law are now thankfully assured, but they should not always trump the rights of Christians to decline and demur because of their beliefs ...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/may/02/muslim-veil-religion

[darkstar3]

1. Again, to be clear:

The rights of Christians and other religious people to avoid performing job duties that are against their religion are completely protected in job choice. McFarlane should never have taken that job.

[struggle4progress]

4. Here's a meditation: "We all have our peculiar little ways."

To help you meditate on it, I'll provide a brief commentary: "We all think a tolerant society will result when other people finally tolerate our own peculiar little ways, but we will not in fact obtain a tolerant society until we ourselves begin to tolerate the peculiar little ways of everyone else."

[darkstar3]

5. Tell that to Mr. McFarlane, whose intolerance lost him his job.

[struggle4progress]

7. Maybe. Maybe not. Dunno. I haven't located any detailed account of the facts of the case.

"Facts first, analysis second"

[Karia]

2. Fundamentalist Christianity

is also linked to racism http://preview.tinyurl.com/y5uw5j3

[trotsky]

3. What about a Christian who said he didn't want to counsel inter-racial couples?

Should we be just as accepting?

[struggle4progress]

6. One ought not expect perfection of counselors, and one ought to encourage them

to be honest enough in their professional self-assessment to recognize contexts where their own imperfections might hinder effective work with particular clients: the alternative is a culture of dishonesty in which the professional pretends to work seriously with the client but actually does not, wasting everybody's time

[trotsky]

8. You didn't answer my question. n/t

[struggle4progress]

9. I've decided to heed the warning: "Arguing with people on the internet can make you stupid"

I have more or less lost interest in discussions based on vague broad and perhaps misleading summaries: my exact reaction to any particular event might vary substantially, depending on the actual details. For this case, I have no interest in hypothetical jabber: if anyone can detail the actual facts, then perhaps there would a basis for further conversation. I responded to your question as well as I could, without playing rhetorical games. I am sorry if you did not like my answer

[trotsky]

10. I didn't ask for an argument, I just asked a question.

Your post was one big rhetorical game. No answer.

[struggle4progress]

11. After several days of searching, I have located (and posted in this forum) several

of the rulings in this case, which (which other easily available materials) provide enough detail to describe the events in question

McFarlane had a former legal career as a solicitor, which he left after several decades, for a career in marital and relationship counseling: he was employed at Relate Avon after a brief volunteering period there. He does not object to counseling same sex couples on relationship issues and has counseled such couples at Relate Avon. For religious reasons, he does object to counseling same sex couples on sexual matters and raised this concern earlier. Relate Avon has a nondiscrimination statement which he accepted by signing. Notwithstanding the potential conflict between his conscience concerns regarding counseling same sex couples on sexual matters and the nondiscrimination statement, McFarlane then sought to move into sexual counseling at Relate Avon: he began appropriate academic training and was given different work responsibilities. He was not terminated for failure to perform specific job functions: he was terminated after a series of conversations with management about hypotheticals, in which management considered his responses too ambiguous

As a general rule, I should sympathize with the employee fired after hypothetical conversations, but certain features here almost scream "rightwing organizing effort." McFarlane, a former lawyer, seeks employment at an organization with a nondiscrimination policy and, though not objecting to counseling same sex couples on relationship issues, he does object to counseling same sex couples on sexual issues -- whereafter he seeks to specialize in sexual counseling matters, and his new position provides an opportunity for a series of run-ins with the employer over purely hypothetical matters. McFarlane's termination then leads Lord Carey's hysterical public predictions about persecution and urban unrest

I don't think rhetorical questions and empty hypothetical jabber are nearly as far as informative as the actual details

[trotsky]

12. My question was far from rhetorical - it has to do with expanding on the point of the article.

If we're going to allow religionists to be bigoted, why restrict it to homophobia? Why not allow a little Christian racism? Because a whole hell of a lot of otherwise liberal Christians would scream (and rightly so) about racism, but are willing to condone a little anti-homosexual bigotry. Just wondering if you are one of them.

[struggle4progress]

13. My abstract view is that counseling process best serves clients if

counselors are free to recuse themselves when honest self-appraisal suggests they will not be able to work effectively with clients, and that a culture of pretense would be counter-productive or harmful. My general preference is to discuss particular cases concretely, with an eye towards specific detail, rather than engaging in vague rhetorical generalities around hypotheticals

I chose the four paragraph excerpt in the OP carefully, and I think the excerpt closely reflects my own overall view of the situation, as it typically has been presented by media to the public; after locating and posting some of the actual rulings, which provide more specific detail on the case, I have explained clearly my view of the situation

If you want to discuss any of that in actual detail, feel free. But I'm not really interested in escalating rhetoric games

[trotsky]

15. Abstract?

Just wanted to know if you feel the same way about ignoring civil rights when it comes to sexuality vs. race. I haven't gotten any kind of clear answer, just a bunch of handwaving and distraction.

[darkstar3]

17. You were expecting anything else? n/t

[vixengrl]

14. I'm going to get a little dumb here--if that's okay--

likening things that other people might not see as similar. Segregated barber shops in the south denied that they could even cut black people's hair as one reason why they wouldn't see those customers. True, there is a difference. But if you wanted to take custom from all comers (since all money is green), wouldn't it behoove you business-wise to learn? Just like, even if one's background is anti-gay, taking a job that holds the expectation of accepting all means understanding how to respectfully deal with all. So even if one didn't like remediating gay couples' issues--one would need to learn how to keep a job. Religion aside, bigotry is bigotry. I don't see how the source of the bigotry being religion should make a difference.

Of course, if this person really wants to shop his own bias, he can hang his own shingle. He just shouldn't expect to be employed by another outfit if there's a part of his job he can't do.

[struggle4progress]

16. I have no objection to what you say. I do think that it is informative

to examine the case in detail and to consider the facts together with the abstract core issue raised by the plaintiffs

So far as the facts go, I suspect the case to be rightly decided. On the other hand, I think the abstract core issue raised by the plaintiffs might have some merit -- or at least that there are issues of merit, so closely related that it is difficult to distinguish them

The facts, as best as I can guess, are these. A man, leaving a career in marital/relationship law, seeks a new career in marital/relationship counseling and joins an organization specializing in such counseling; he formally accepts the nondiscrimination policy and discusses his various conscientious reservations with management. These reservations are of the form Although I can provide relationship counseling for same sex partners, I cannot provide counseling for same sex partner sexual activity but this is originally moot, as his initial job does not involve such counseling. The man then seeks to switch roles in his employment, to a position in which his job potentially involves not only relationship counseling for same sex partners (to which he does not object and which he does sometimes provide) but also counseling for same sex partner sexual activities (to which he does object). He then manages to have a series of completely abstract confrontations with his employer, over hypothetical questions of whether he can be forced against his conscience to provide counseling for same sex partner sexual activities. After a period, the organization grows weary of this and sacks him. He sues. As the organization had no difficulty employing him in his original capacity, the natural question will be, Why did he seek a different position which was more or less guaranteed to produce conflict between employee and employer? -- and the natural (though strictly unprovable) suspicion will be that he sought the position to engineer the conflict for the lawsuit. So (as far as the lawsuit goes) I am inclined to think it rightly decided

Whether the organization made a good choice is a different question, which I cannot answer. One ought to hope that competent counselors operate in an environment where their own imperfections can be properly acknowledged in order that counselors be most appropriately paired with clients in the interest of good outcomes. It is easy enough to construct hypotheticals where the self-recusal of the counselor, though not necessarily rational, must be acknowledged as entirely professional and appropriate, as in the following two fictional examples:

The clients sought marital relationship counseling. In the initial interview, we discussed their backgrounds and home life. Their education and many of their general cultural interests are similar to my own. Towards the end of the second interview, in discussing their bedroom and sex life, it developed that they are casual collectors of unspecified WWII memorabilia. The clients appear to harbor no actual Nazi sympathies but do sometimes use the WWII memorabilia in their sex play. As both of my parents were the sole members of their families to survive the Shoah, and as my childhood memories include many survivors from the neighborhood, I felt it best to refer them to another therapist

My eight year old daughter's best friend Cathy was kidnapped several years ago by a thin blond man, about 6'6" in height. She is a sweet girl and I could hardly sleep until she was found. Cathy was recovered unharmed, but for months after the trial I had regular nightmares about a tall thin blond man with no face. The instant this particular client (a tall thin blond elementary school teacher) walked into my office, I knew I couldn't possibly work with him: it was, of course, entirely irrational, but memories of the week of kidnapping now and then still sometimes overwhelm me, and so I immediately provided him with a referral to a colleague

The situation with every counselor is different, of course, but counseling is not a purely mechanical profession -- and one might be a good very counselor in some circumstances and completely unfit for other circumstances. One hopes that appropriate allowances can be made