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Coffman: When consience is criminalized
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Joe Coffman writes...Usually May is the time of the year when students are fitted for the cap and gown, count their credits, pay their school bill and plan the parties. With a firm handshake and a costly piece of paper, they will start their lives in the real world.
That won't be true for Julea Ward, who used to be a graduate student at Eastern Michigan University until she was kicked out for her religious beliefs.
This Week's Top Opinion
I'm launching a new LA Church & State Examiner feature this week in which I share a particular story or opinion piece of interest for the week.
This Week's Top Opinion Post comes from Joe Coffman, originally published in The Holland Sentinal and found at OneNewsNow.com. If it can happen in Ypsilanti, Michigan, it can happen in L.A.
Coffman continues...
Ms. Ward was enrolled in a graduate program at the school and as part of her education was required to enroll in a counseling practicum. In that practicum, she was assigned a case involving a homosexual who needed help. Ms. Ward did not feel that she could affirm the student's homosexual lifestyle because of her Christian beliefs, so she asked her supervisor what she should do.
His advice was to refer the student to a counselor who had no qualms with affirming homosexual behavior. That is what she did, and it was all done before she saw the student. There was no counseling that took place between the two, there was no confrontation between the two, and there was no condemnation of homosexuality -- just an honest confession of her deeply held religious belief. But the story doesn't end there.
A time for tolerance...and a time for re-programming?
Julea was summoned to appear before a disciplinary hearing and told that if she wanted to continue on with her graduate program, she would have to submit to a "remediation" program so that she could see "the error of her ways." She refused to be forced into a re-education program designed to convert her from biblical faith, and as a result, she was kicked out of school. There's your tolerance.
Now, remember, Julea didn't demand that the student be denied help, she didn't get in his face and tell him he's condemned to hell, she didn't even roll her eyes and give a general impression of disgust. She simply told the truth, obeyed what her supervisor told her to do, and carried on with her life.
Don't tread on me...
Publicly funded colleges and universities, and even private schools, used to pride themselves on being open forums, encouraging diversity of beliefs and philosophies. They still think that is what they are, but the truth is becoming clear: they are open to some ideas, as long as they are not from an evangelical Christian worldview, and as long as you don't practice what you preach.
Now the government is getting into the act of criminalizing your Christian conscience. -- Joe Coffman
The full opinion piece can be for at either The Holland Sentinal or OneNewsNow.com. However, one concluding thought still rings in my ear:
Maybe we need to change our national motto from "In God We Trust" to "Trust in God at Your Own Peril." -- Joe Coffman
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