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

[struggle4progress]

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