Just to play Devil's advocate, what would the ruling be if Ms. Ward was instead a Christian Scientist who was enrolled in medical school. And, while on her internship rotations, she told patients (who had easily manageable conditions through drug therapies) that they would be better off praying for a cure rather than seeking medical intervention? Would that be protected as a First Amendment right, or would that be horrible medicine that should result in expulsion from the program? I would argue the latter, but I would assume some wouldn't.

I'm not a psychologist nor a psychiatrist, but I would imagine that there are medically appropriate ways of treating a patient dealing with sexual identity issues, and some of those therapies might be in conflict with religious dogma. Doesn't the university have an obligation to ensure that medical science is followed before religious orthodoxy is observed? I understand that's not exactly what happened here: She just refused to treat these patients in the manner medically prescribed, rather than treating them in contrary (and more religiously acceptable) manner. That's certainly a distinction worth noting.

I'm put this more simply: Could a university put up a sign that said, "No Christian Scientist allowed if those Christian Scientist are going to put the religious beliefs before their medical obligations"? Would that be a 1A infringement?

I hope not.

This comment is very much along the lines of what I was thinking regarding the second case. I'm not arguing it was wrongly decided, but it raises some interesting questions. I think in the ideal world the school in question would be free to set their own criteria for what qualifies as a harmless personal opinion and what qualifies as simply a wrong answer. People who believe differently than EMU on the subject would be free to go to a different school. Employers would then be free to hire people who studied under differing curricula based on which method they thought to be a superior solution for their customers. In that sort of system, the court would have no need to arbitrate cases like this because the more successful belief system would ultimately prosper in the marketplace. Unfortunately our education system is mostly government run, so that does not apply.

"How you choose to do them is your business. "

First, I don't think you understand the proper use of the phrase, "straw man".

In any event, medical students, and even doctors, don't get to choose how they do procedures. But generally, doctors see and examine patients. They draw conclusions about patient ailments from those examination and ensuing tests and then they present treatment options to their patients. This is all done in keeping with the standards of care that are established and enforced by the different governing bodies within medicine: The hospital and or university as well as the state medical boards and FDA. While it's true that they can refuse some to perform some medical therapies, even this has its limits, and that's the point I was exploring. Would a doctor, citing a particular religious belief, be able to keep his/her license if they refused to prescribe medicine and advocated to their patient that pharmaceuticals weren't appropriate - not because of some scientific basis, but because of a religious orthodoxy?

"In your example the person would be telling the homosexual your problem is that you are a homosexual and you should repent. She didn't do that. "

Now, who's making a straw man argument? Where in my post do I suggest that this is what this woman did? In fact, I clearly acknowledge that this isn't what she did. Instead, I posited a hypothetical that intends to draw a distinction between a physician's First Amendment right and that physician's responsibility as a practicing and licensed medical professional. I'm sorry that went over your head.

To both Hardcastle and to Chris Kennedy: Don't people have mid-life conversions to Christian Science? If people convert to Judaism, Catholicism, Buddhism and Islam, I assume that some become Christian Scientist.

I'm not trying to pick a fight, but I am trying to examine the consequences of the ruling - intended and unintended. I think as a matter of practicality and of professional responsibility, I can certainly see why a profession that has a fundamental basis in science and only in science, would like to erect a firewall between religious orthodoxy and science-based therapies.

"Your hypothetical is akin to asking what the Army would do if a person who had a religious objection to guns wanted to enlist as an infantryman."

Not really. I can promise you as a retired infantry officer, I have seen more than a couple of enlistees adopt an adherence to pacifism that they didn't possess when they signed their contracts. Many of these conversions were conversions of convenience, but some were actually legitimate and sincere. I promise you that after you take someone's life for the first time, most people ask themselves if they're capable of doing it again. Some aren't. If, after closing with the enemy for the first time, a young platoon commander came to me as said he was incapable of again ordering his men to engage the enemy, and I found his statements sincere, I would move to dismiss him even if he wanted to stay on in another capacity. A marine who can't fight the enemy isn't much use to me. Consequently, I can see how a doctor who can't treat some patients with the appropriate standard of care therapies because they don't agree with that patient's lifestyle choice, would present a problem to medical schools, hospitals and medical ethics boards.

No, I think JEM is right - I read your post in exactly the same way they did.

You're equating a counselor who declined to treat a homosexual, because she reasonably expects that her feelings on the matter would preclude the client getting the kind of treatment they likely want, so she arranged for a referral to another counselor who could offer the client the kind of treatment they probably want, with a doctor who tells a patient to choose some other type of treatment than what is most effective.

The difference is, in your example, the doctor sees the patient and recommends a sub-optimal medical treatment. In the case as described in the original post, the counselor did NOT see the patient, did NOT recommend a treatment at all, but rather, transferred the patient to another counselor who was more likely a fit with the patients desires for treatment.

To make your analogy fit, the medical doctor would have to see the patient, but rather than prescribing anything, bring in another doctor and let that doctor make a prescription or recommendation. Which seems completely within the bounds of reason for any sane human being. Even a marine.

Sorry, I didn't see your response before posting essentially the same thing. Your ADHD example is a good one. What I object to in Scott's post -- and maybe this wasn't his intention -- was the implication that disagreement with the official position on homosexuality, whether on religious grounds or on purely medical or psychological grounds, is so far outside acceptable professional norms that the person with the dissenting view is unqualified to practice, even as a counselor. Again, maybe I'm reading too much into Scott's post, but that was what I was reacting to.

Counseling is not at all the same thing as medicine. You seem to be confused about that issue. Counseling is one way of addressing non-somatic issues: spiritual, mental or emotional. Within the broad framework of counseling, there are many different approaches (psychoanalysis and cognitive-behavioral therapy would be two very different approaches). Thus, there is no "standard of care" for counseling someone about his sexual orientation. The plaintiff did exactly the right thing--she referred the person on to someone else. THAT is the standard of care in counseling.

If the people who issue and revoke licenses for practicing medicine saw fit to prevent someone from practicing because that person disagreed with the politicized body that removed homosexuality from the DSM -- and if the law allowed that to happen -- then the law would be an ass. Dr. Charles Socarides treated homosexuals until his death in 2005 and claimed to have cured one-third of his patients of what he considered to be a mental disorder. His license wasn't revoked, so at least at that point it appears that the result you are suggesting hadn't been achieved.

It's good to see some sense coming out of the courts. Hopefully this trend will continue and higher education will start to come back to a model of true freedom of speech and thought.