Category Archives: Belief

How far can people go to avoid their professional duties on religious grounds?

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From Overlawyered:

Stephen Dunne, 30, flunked the Massachusetts bar exam and now says it was because he refused on principle to answer an exam question concerning the rights of two married lesbians, their children and property. He claims the hypothetical, which concludes with the question “What are the rights of Mary and Jane?”, violated his First Amendment rights and served as a “screening device” to exclude persons like himself who disapprove on religious grounds of the state’s gay marriage law.

Let’s be clear about this: he left an answer on a bar exam completely blank. Now he is suing a group of lawyers for offending his tender sensibilities. Speaking as a lawyer (albeit one who has neither taken the Massachusetts bar exam nor practiced law there, although I have been to Amherst and thought it was nice), this guy would have made a terrible lawyer anyway. There is really no way, if you want to be any good at what you do, to avoid opining on issues that you may find repellent. The law is what it is, and if you don’t like it, a lawyer can (a) look for a sneaky way around it or (b) become a lobbyist and try to change it. The simple fact that this guy refused to even consider the question, IMHO, suggests that he does not understand the nature of being a lawyer at all.

I previously discussed doctors and pharmacists who don’t want to do their jobs on religious grounds. What gets me about this case is that the guy didn’t even try to answer the question. If he had at least written something that would pass as a bar exam essay, I’m not sure there’d be grounds for a lawsuit, but at least there could be a coherent discussion:

Dunne, who describes himself as a Christian and a Democrat, is seeking $9.75 million in damages and wants a jury to prohibit the Board of Bar Examiners from considering the question in his passage of the exam and to order it removed from all future exams.
“There’s a different forum for that contemporary issue to be discussed, and it’s inappropriate to be on a professional licensing examination,” Dunne told the Herald. “You don’t see questions about partial-birth abortion or abortion on there.”

 

Dunne scored a 268.866 on the bar exam, just missing a passing grade of 270. The exam question at issue concerns two married lesbian attorneys and their rights regarding a house and two children when one decides to end the marriage.

This question has nothing to do with the propriety, morality, validity, etc., of the “marriage” in question–it addresses a situation that is quite likely to occur in the real world (something that rarely happens in law school, trust me.) This guy chooses to skip an entire bar exam question, barely fails, and now blames someone else for offending him. Calling it a “contemporary issue” is one of the most creative non-sequiturs I’ve heard in some time. The practice of law is pretty dang contemporary, as in it deals with current issues like marriage and divorce–which is legal for homosexuals in Massachusetts, at least at the moment. If you don’t think a lawyer should have to address that issue, you don’t deserve to be a lawyer. And you make a pretty strange case for your religious beliefs, as well.

One final quote from the article, for my own amusement:

Dunne claims the question was used as a “screening device” to identify and penalize him for “refusing to subscribe to a liberal ideology based on ‘secular humanism,’ ”according to his lawsuit.
“Homosexual conduct is inconsistent with (Dunne’s) Christian practices, beliefs and values, which are protected by the First Amendment,” the lawsuit states.

 

“I respect people with alternative lifestyles, and we must do that in a civil society,” Dunne said. “I just have a different opinion that millions of people share with me, and I believe that my opinion should be respected just as much as (pro-gay) opinions. I have no intent in spreading hatred or discrimination.”

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Doctors now refusing to prescribe any medicine because of religious beliefs (not really)

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Numerous doctors throughout the United States are now refusing to utilize any products offered by the pharmaceutical industry, based on religious conviction that God will heal the faithful. A doctor recently responded to multiple complaints to the American Meidcal Association that his professional diagnosis for at least fifteen cancer patients was vigorous prayer. Incidentally, all of the patients succumbed to their illnesses.

Okay, to the best of my knowledge none of the stuff I just described has actually happened. I made the whole thing up (I hope).

But there are doctors who refuse certain types of treatment based on their own religious beliefs, and the law protects their right to not do their job. Now, if someone has a moral objection to a particular procedure and does not want to perform it, that is fine and dandy–so a person who morally opposes the morning-after pill might want to stay away from jobs where there is a high likelihood of treating recent rape victims. Likewise, someone who opposes contraception but really loves being a pharmacist might consider passing off those customers to another pharmacist.

It is also important to note that I am not even talking about abortion here, but rather contraceptive services, involving prevention of fertilization of an egg or implantation of a fertilized zygote. None of these events yet involve a distinct biological entity–I could go on about how many fertilized zygotes never actually reach their destination of the uterine wall anyway, so if keeping a zygote from implantation is murder, the Mother Nature is the greatest murderess of the all. But that is rather beside the point.

Generally, the women (it’s always women) who are denied services are allowed to seek treatment elsewhere, but they lose crucial time in seeking out a doctor or pharmacist who will leave the women’s decisions to herself and do his or her job.

I suppose an analogy in my own life, being a lawyer, might involve certain criminal offenses. I do not practice criminal law at all, but even if I did, I would be uncomfortable representing someone charged with, say, sexual abuse of a child. Nothing in my professional duties requires me to take this person’s case, but I also cannot do anything to delay him (or her) from seeking counsel elsewhere. The timeframe in law is also much longer than it often is in medicine, so this person would likely have time to find another lawyer–out of professional courtesy, I would probably provide names of some good criminal defense attorneys.

Maybe a better analogy is a doctor who holds deeply-held religious convictions that homosexuality is wrong and a mortal sin, etc., etc. If that doctor comes upon a homosexual who has been shot in the gut and is slowly bleeding to death, can that doctor just walk on and not render any sort of aid? Can that doctor refuse to treat that person if he/she is brought into his ER? How far as a society are we going to take the coddling of people’s religious beliefs when it conflicts with the jobs they studied, trained, applied, and interviewed for, and are quite frankly luck to have?

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In the name of Jesus – UPDATED

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I know this person most likely does not represent the mainstream of Christian thought in America today, but it is important to show what is being said in Jesus’ name:

This is posted here (NSFW, really), and I don’t know what newspaper it is from or if it is even real. On the off chance that someone actually wrote this (I hope it’s fake), it is chilling. Aside from some factually-questionable assertions, the idea that the First Amendment somehow mandates religious belief of some sort is, well, baffling. That’s really all I think needs to be said here.

Like I said, I hope this thing is fake.

UPDATE – Thanks to Google and a little more free time, I confirmed that the clipping is for real, originally published in the Kenai Peninsula, Alaska Clarion (it has made its way around as a scanned clipping because the newspaper’s website requires registration. I took one for the team and did so.) Comments can be found here, here, and here.

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Thoughts on a man I didn’t like from a man I don’t like

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From Eat the Press:

We will say this: No matter how frustrating, sexist and occasionally incoherent [Christopher Hitchens] can be, when he is on he’s on. This appearance was a tour de force. A sample:

COOPER: Christopher, I’m not sure if you believe in heaven, but, if you do, do you think Jerry Falwell is in it?

HITCHENS: No. And I think it’s a pity there isn’t a hell for him to go to.

COOPER: What is it about him that brings up such vitriol?

HITCHENS: The empty life of this ugly little charlatan proves only one thing, that you can get away with the most extraordinary offenses to morality and to truth in this country if you will just get yourself called reverend. Who would, even at your network, have invited on such a little toad to tell us that the attacks of September the 11th were the result of our sinfulness and were God’s punishment if they hadn’t got some kind of clerical qualification?

People like that should be out in the street, shouting and hollering with a cardboard sign and selling pencils from a cup. The whole consideration of this — of this horrible little person is offensive to very, very many of us who have some regard for truth and for morality, and who think that ethics do not require that lies be told to children by evil old men, that we’re — we’re not told that people who believe like Falwell will be snatched up into heaven, where I’m glad to see he skipped the rapture, just found on the floor of his office, while the rest of us go to hell.

How dare they talk to children like this? How dare they raise money from credulous people on their huckster-like Elmer Gantry radio stations, and fly around in private jets, as he did, giggling and sniggering all the time at what he was getting away with?

Do you get an idea now of what I mean to say?

COOPER: Yes, no, I think — I think you’re making yourself very clear.

 

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This is the problem, folks

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From an interview with Lt. Col. Ralph Kauzlarich on ESPN.com:

In a transcript of his interview with Brig. Gen. Gary Jones during a November 2004 investigation, Kauzlarich said he’d learned Kevin Tillman, Pat’s brother and fellow Army Ranger who was a part of the battle the night Pat Tillman died, objected to the presence of a chaplain and the saying of prayers during a repatriation ceremony in Germany before his brother’s body was returned to the United States.

 

Kauzlarich, now a battalion commanding officer at Fort Riley in Kansas, further suggested the Tillman family’s unhappiness with the findings of past investigations might be because of the absence of a Christian faith in their lives.

 

In an interview with ESPN.com, Kauzlarich said: “When you die, I mean, there is supposedly a better life, right? Well, if you are an atheist and you don’t believe in anything, if you die, what is there to go to? Nothing. You are worm dirt. So for their son to die for nothing, and now he is no more — that is pretty hard to get your head around that. So I don’t know how an atheist thinks. I can only imagine that that would be pretty tough.”

 

Asked by ESPN.com whether the Tillmans’ religious beliefs are a factor in the ongoing investigation, Kauzlarich said, “I think so. There is not a whole lot of trust in the system or faith in the system [by the Tillmans]. So that is my personal opinion, knowing what I know.”

Hey asshole, maybe they are upset because you, and the rest of the military, have lied to them for the past two years! Not that it matters, but who ever said anything about the Tillmans being atheist? “Not Christian” and atheist are different concepts, but I doubt this guy can comprehend that. Would you honestly be perfectly hunky-dory fine with losing a member of your family this way just because you believe he/she is now in heaven? The fact that Spc. Tillman died is just as tragic as the deaths of the other 3,000-something American men and women and the countless Iraqis and Afghans (please note that it was a group of self-styled Christians who started the tragedy in Iraq in the first place). The fact that a b.s. story has been spun about it all this time is criminal, and, based on everything I have ever been taught in my life, pretty fricking un-Christian.

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United in disbelief, or something

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Making fun of Dinesh D’Souza is about as easy as shooting fish that are duct-taped to the barrel of a gun, but I just can’t help myself. I once observed how he made a convincing case that debauchery and vice is every American’s patriotic duty, and now he sort of makes a case for the inherent kindness and decency of atheists (other good comments here and here). His point seems to be that atheists never show up to make statements/pronouncements/whatever when something tragic happens. As evidence, he notes that Richard Dawkins has not been invited to speak at VA Tech. To my knowledge, Dawkins has never been named the Atheist Pope, so I’m not sure why this matters. D’Souza also offers no particular answers to his own question (“Where Is Atheism When Bad Things Happen?”) other than a few paraphrasings of Dawkins’ writings that make me wonder if he actuallyt read any of them. All I can get from this (and I acknowledge a possible bias on my part towards rational thought and looking for the good in all people) is the following:

1. Atheists by and large do not congregate in large groups and therefore do not have spokespeople.
2. As a derivative of item 1, they also do not advertise or make public statements on behalf of anyone but themselves.
3. All he does is beg the question of where God was during the shooting, since he’s asking about atheists afterwards.

My faith in humanity is restored by the utter beatdown he gets in his own comments section.

I suppose he is expecting Richard Dawkins to show up in Virginia, approach the family of a victim, and tell them in his haughty British accent that the souls of their loved ones do not really exist and that they did not go anywhere after death. D’Souza may be surprised to find that he is dealing with a rather polite and considerate segment of society. Dickishness in the face of tragedy is more the idiom of the religiously-oriented.

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Chocolate salty Jesus

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Please please please PLEASE someone tell me this guy does not speak for the majority of Christians out there (I’m referring to Bill Donohue, of course). I almost feel sorry for Donohue in the clip of him on Anderson Cooper–he can’t seem to get the artist, Cosmo Cavallaro, to sink to his level. “You’re talking like a 5-year old.”

The artist has a right to create art as he sees fit, and Donohue has a right to make an ass of himself. I have a right to wonder why on earth someone would want to make a Jesus out of chocolate and why someone would think it is somehow blasphemous. I mean, leaving aside issues of free speech and such, what is the big deal here? Is it the chocolate? What’s wrong with chocolate? Is it that he’s nude and anatomically correct? I can’t quite figure it out (I also haven’t been to church lately, so maybe they’ve changed some things.) I know that we’re supposed to be ashamed of our genitalia, so it could stand to reason that we should pretend Jesus didn’t have any. I don’t recall a Biblical proscription on chocolate–had it even been invented when Leviticus was written? Anyway, Donohue is a dick.

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While you’re at it, lay off of the Flying Spaghetti Monster

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The latest from the United Nations:

Islamic countries pushed through a resolution at the U.N. Human Rights Council on Friday urging a global prohibition on the public defamation of religion _ a response largely to the furor last year over caricatures published in a Danish newspaper of the Muslim Prophet Muhammad.

That’s a great idea. I assume, of course, that the final global prohibition will prevent anyone from defaming any religious belief. Will Muslims be encouraged to stop calling non-Muslims “infidels”? Will Christians be encouraged to stop using the word “crusade”? Will everyone be encouraged to stop using “godless” as a synonym for “evil”? If the whole world is required to respect (or at least not defame) all other religions, the same must apply to the lack thereof. I’d better not hear anyone making fun of Zeus and Apollo. No more calling Thor a “homo” either.

This really is a great idea. How will the UN enforce this–economic sanctions? Canadian peacekeeping forces to prevent further insult-hurling? Perhaps a joint Malaysian and Ghanaian peacekeeping force could be deployed to Copenhagen to prevent further newspaper cartoons. Could a UN-backed global prohibition be all we really need to put an end to sectarian violence once and for all? And would it mean and end to quality programming like this:

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Hold on a second…

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From the Dallas Morning News:

The Rev. R. Albert Mohler Jr., one of the country’s pre-eminent evangelical leaders, acknowledged that he irked many fellow conservatives with an article this month saying that scientific research “points to some level of biological causation” for homosexuality.

Proof of a biological basis would challenge the belief of many conservative Christians that homosexuality – which they view as sinful – is a matter of choice that can be overcome through prayer and counseling.

However, Dr. Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., was assailed even more harshly by gay-rights supporters. They were upset by his assertion that homosexuality would remain a sin even if it were biologically based, and by his support for possible medical treatment that could switch an unborn gay baby’s sexual orientation to heterosexual.

Far be it for me to say what’s what on matters of faith, but I gotta say that Dr. Mohler can’t have it both ways. Either it’s a lifestyle choice, in which a remarkable number of people have chosen ostracism (and fabulosity!); or it’s a biological defect, in which case we’re darn lucky to have someone like Dr. Mohler to repair God’s gigantic fuck-up.

As I have often wondered, now that we’ve solved the gay problem (clearly proscribed in Leviticus 18:22), when are we going to deal with all those men who “cut the hair at the sides of [their] head or clip off the edges of [their] beard” (Lev. 19:27)?

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