My Reaction to Dismissal of Counseling Student....

First of all I want to say that I think that it was justified to remove her from the program.  I also want to say that I agree with the University's decision to pursue action.  I do not, however, agree with the logic that was used. They use the term "gay affirming counseling," and "homosexual lifestyle." 

I am going to get up on my soapbox for a bit....

First of all homosexuality is not a "lifestyle choice" any more than heterosexuality is a lifestyle choice.  To me, that term is illogical. Being gay is not a choice. When a person hits puberty sexual attraction starts and hormones and brain chemistry dictate to whom an individual with be attracted to.  The only choice here is made by nature and genetics.

 MRI functional scan studies have been done that show a difference in brain function between heterosexual and homosexual clients.  There is a functional difference demonstrated in those studies (Lindstrom et al, 2008). This would indicate to me that there is a biological basis for sexual orientation.  It would be as logical as saying you choose to have blue eyes, or you choose to be black, or you choose to have natural blonde hair.

Now lets take that bit of information and put it to use in this example.  If this counselor said that she did not agree with the blue eyed lifestyle and refused to treat a client because they had blue eyes, how ridiculous would that seem?

I think that it is very sad that it should even have to be a debate in this day and age.  A friend of mine who is an academic has an original copy of the Encylopedia Brittanica from the mid 1800's.  I leafed through it one day because I find it  interesting to see how the world has changed and how political views have changed since then.  Upon my exploration I came across the entry for African American (or in those days the very crude term used for African American) and I was in absolute shock about what the entry had to say.  It spanned four pages and went on to explain how black people were substandard in every way, including intelligence and how that they were savages who's sole drive was food and sex.  It was totally full of political propaganda and just horrid!  This was and still is a respected reference for academia.  Its not like it was some rag magazine that no one took seriously.  People looked at this book to learn information which they thought was correct. 

Today , this would have NEVER made it to print and I am sure that a major law suit would have occurred had it even been considered for publication!  People would read this today, as I did, and realize how ludicrous it was to think that way. My whole point to bringing this up is to show that we are not really thinking any differently than they did back then when it comes to the gay issue.  We are taking away rights based on a biased stereotype coming from a lot of political influence.  Someday, hopefully, future generations will look back at our time period and be just as shocked and amazed at how we thought about things.

Now, back to the subject at hand.  I think it is ridiculous to allow any professional to refuse service to someone because they are gay.  Refusal because of orientation is ridiculous and illogical based on what I have presented above. It saddens me to see that in 2012 we still haven't figured ourselves out and this sort of behavior  still goes on.


References:
Lindstrom, P. (2008). PET and MRI show differences in cerebral asymmetry and functional connectivity between homo- and heterosexual subjects. Neuroscience, 105(27), 9403–9408.