Ga. School Forces Christian Student to Alter Beliefs to Graduate | Hacker News Reader

Ga. School Forces Christian Student to Alter Beliefs to Graduate

christianpost.com

4 pointsgeorgecmu11 comments

Strange how things have flipped. A mere 10 years ago or so, the sides in a statement like this would've been reversed, especially if it were on any other aspect of human psychology or behavior:

  She has stated that she believes sexual behavior is the result of accountable 
  personal choice rather than an inevitability deriving from deterministic forces.

The modern (post-WW2) academic left has generally been very opposed to deterministic explanations of human behavior that sap the subject of agency. For a long time, accusing someone of "genetic determinism" or "environmental determinism" or similar was an insult. But here someone is being accused of not believing in essentially a variety of genetic/environmental determinism.

It's strange that it even came up, though. No school I've been at does any sort of ideological vetting of its undergrads and masters students; masters students are barely noticed at all as they zip in and out in a year or two. (PhD students are more complicated, because to some extent it's joint research with an advisor, so if you have bitter disagreements with all the faculty, problems will ensue.)

Personally, I think this sort of ideological vetting in this case is justified.

This girl is planning to be a school counselor somewhere, and chances are she would have to counsel LGBT kids. She made it clear that she would not accept their sexual identities, would consider them sinners destined for hell, and, chances are, would treat them accordingly. If her beliefs were truly personal and there would be reasonable doubt that they would not interfere with her work and duty toward the kids, this would be a non-issue. However, as it stands, she is likely to incur a lot of emotional damage to kids from the most vulnerable segment of school population.

I could buy that as a job requirement. I'm mostly uncomfortable how it's couched in language about determinism, as if believing in genetic/environmental determinism is now a prerequisite to get degrees. I'd actually be much more okay with an openly ideological test, like: a prerequisite to get this degree is a belief that LGBT kids are not immoral/etc. and ought to be treated respectfully [etc. etc.].

While I'm not familiar with the tenets of other Christian faiths, the Roman Catholic belief is that being LGBT is not immoral per se, but engaging in homosexual acts is.

Which brings us to the issue of premarital/underage sex: it hardly matters whether it's hetro or homosexual now, does it? Should all Christians be removed from this field?

Or should we consider that those who say "Hate the sin, love the sinner" just might be sincere? In which case "an openly ideological test" to simply treat people with respect is not so ideological after all.

Whereas the grounds they are pushing, echoing my 1984 riff, ought to require frequent testing as the true ideology de jour changes.

Oh, but with respect to other aspects of human behavior the things are still the other way around. From the article, another of her questionable beliefs was:

  She also has affirmed binary male-female gender, with one or the other
  being fixed in each person at their creation, and not a social construct or
  individual choice subject to alteration by the person so created.

Clearly, the approved view would have been that whether you are male or female is a "social construct" and/or your individual choice, however whether you are gay or straight is hardwired.

Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.

I used to think exactly like her. I understand where she's coming from. She likely has no conception of her own bigotry. There's quite a bit of cognitive dissonance in the church. I finally left all that behind when I couldn't reconcile the concept of a loving God with homophobia. Some things that helped were being judged by fellow Christians for my own moral choices, watching the movie 'Milk', and having a close friend explain what it was like to be gay and raised in a Christian family.

The reason this person was rightly sent to remediation is not that she disagreed with her teachers on a scientific matter. The reason is that her only justification for disagreeing was religion. In any science (and psychology definitely follows the scientific method, even if it has produced fewer ironclad facts than physics) this is completely unacceptable. "My pastor told me Newton's laws break down at a high enough speed" would never, ever, fly. Even if Newton's laws do break down at a high enough speed, you need science to back it up. In modern psychology, you conduct experiments. You don't rely on what your pastor told you. You don't even rely on what Freud told you. You rely on science, and anyone who does otherwise has no business being a psychologist.

I don't think I've run into a school that actually had a remediation process for this, though. At least where I went to college, if you did well in your physics classes, you got a physics degree, even if everyone knew that you personally didn't believe in Newton's laws. If you refused to apply Newton's laws while doing your projects, well then you failed, but if you just stated that you think they're wrong, and still did all your projects/exams/homeworks/etc. correctly, I don't think there was even a mechanism to deny a degree to a student who'd fulfilled the degree requirements.

FTA: "Keeton's views 'depart from what 'the psychological research about GLBTQ (gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer/questioning) populations asserts' that that 'sexual orientation is not a lifestyle or choice, but a state of being,'' faculty members said."

-and-

"Keeton told faculty members, 'I can’t alter my biblical beliefs, and I will not affirm the morality of those behaviors in a counseling situation.'"

So basically, she's another christian asshole frothing at the mouth to go out and hate her some gay people. To her shock, the school is refusing to give her the veneer of respectability by granting her a masters degree in counseling. Why is it news that your silly beliefs don't override professional obligations in fields like counseling, psychiatry, medicine, etc?

I'm going to ignore the utterly-intolerant and ignorant last paragraph of your comment, but weigh in on the starting part of your comment.

You seem to assert that those two statements: a.) "research about GLBTQ populations asserts ... orientation is ... a state of being" and b.) "[Keeton] will not affirm the morality of those behaviors" are contradictory.

Are they?

Does psychological research dictate morality? That seems to be what you're saying.

What about other behaviors society more consistently deems as immoral, like drunkenness? If some day the "psychological research about alcoholic populations asserts that that propensity to drink in excess is not a lifestyle or choice, but a state of being", would that suddenly make drunkenness moral?

Do you truly believe morality comes from the dictates of psychological research?

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