A Biblical Degree of Fraud

Posted by Brian Magee Brian Magee Wednesday, July 28th, 2010

Usually, people applying to graduate school hope to improve their knowledge, wisdom, and understanding while obtaining a degree. That seems to not be the case with Jennifer Keeton, a student at Augusta State University (ASU) in Georgia.
 
Keeton has teamed up with the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), a right wing Christian legal organization, to sue ASU because the administrators of the graduate counseling program in which she’s enrolled want her to address her Bible-based bias toward LGBT people. Through one of her lawyers, Keeton is claiming that she is being told to “renounce her faith.”

(The lawsuit can be found here.)
 
Although Keeton is not talking publicly to the media, the ADF has produced a video in which her position and the lawsuit are defended. “The school counseling faculty has decided that my views are not acceptable for me or to share with other students,” Keeton states in the video. “They have required a remediation plan in which the end result would be me altering my beliefs or being dismissed from the program.” 
 
The ADF seems to have been initially successful in its spinning of this issue in order to get people on the religious right to see this as “freedom of religion” case. (Examples can be found here and here.) For those who actually take a closer look, it’s not about freedom of religion at all.
 
Keeton, who thinks homosexuals suffer from “identity confusion,” wants to get a graduate counseling degree from ASU, which uses national standards on which to base its curriculum. Those standards, from the American School Counselor Association (ASCA), include the requirement that students must “recognize and accept” differences among their future potential clients/patients, including cultural diversity and alternative points of view. This means that telling LGBT people that their “lifestyle choice” is invalid based on the Bible is not in line with those standards.
 
According to a letter sent by the school to Keeton, program associate director Mary Jane Anderson-Wiley writes about Keeton’s “belief that you possess a special knowledge about the way that other people should live their lives, and that others need to adopt a similar set of values.” In that letter, Anderson-Wiley also repeats something from one of Keeton’s emails which gives genuine cause for concern: “…my Christian moral views are not just about me. I think the Bible’s teaching is true for all people and it shows the right way to live.”
 
The remediation program in which she was asked to take part included diversity training (among other things not related to religion or her beliefs at all). It was also suggested that she attend a local gay pride parade. The plan then required her to write about what she learned from these experiences. Keeton has refused.
 
Administrators have informed Keeton that her personal beliefs are not the focus of the remediation, only her ability to adhere to the ASCA’s guidelines when dealing with LGBT people. “…the content of [Keeton's] moral or religious beliefs is not in question,” Anderson-Wiley’s letter reads.

It appears that Keeton wants the perks and prestige of an advanced degree from an accredited school, but does not want to do the things required to get it. If she were to obtain a degree from ASU and purposely not adhere the the guidelines, both she and the university would be committing fraud.
 
If she is going to use the Bible to counsel men who have been “with mankind, as with womankind,” two Biblical options are available. According to Leviticus 18, the offender must be “cut off from among their people.” Leviticus 20 instead states that homosexual men should be “put to death.” A counselor who will use the Bible to counsel gay men is limited to these two choices. (There is no mention of so-called “ex-gay” therapies in the Bible.)
 
For lesbians she’ll have to come up with something else; there’s no directed action to take for “women lying with women.” Only in Romans 1 is it mentioned, and here only in passing along with a litany of other things Paul isn’t too keen on people doing. He only concludes these certain people are “worthy of death,” never actually commanding execution.
 
If Keeton wants to use the mythical stories from the Bible as the basis of a counseling career, she should go to a school which offers such a curriculum. Then the people who come to her would know that her skills are based on the limited and skewed view of the universe dictated by a handful of people through “visions” over 2,000 years ago.
 
Keeton could then be completely open about the other Biblical edicts she would be offering as solutions for various issues. For example, if a virgin woman who has been raped is having trouble dealing with it, Keeton could suggest marriage to her rapist as the Biblical God demands (Deuteronomy 22). In another case, if a woman is having emotional issues tied to her menstrual cycle, Keeton could suggest an alternative to modern PMS treatments by inquiring if the woman has been properly sacrificing two birds for the sin of her period each month. (Leviticus 15).
 
Most “treatments” based on the Bible that don’t require death of the patient via stoning or a sacrifice of some animal(s) can be summed up with one sentiment: Give up and pray. As an example, if you look at this random Google search result called “Biblical Solutions to Anxiety,” the solution is ”…if we do as we should and strive to please God, we can have faith that He will take care of us and see us through life’s struggles. Because of our confidence in God, we need not become overburdened with worry and anxiety.”
 
So, there you go. All wrapped up in less than the time of one counseling session. No degree really seems necessary for such Biblical advice.

Keeton should be honest about what kind of counselor she wants to be, and find an appropriate school. She should get her training from a place that offers such Biblical wisdom as outlined here. A long weekend should do the trick. The rest of us can then safely avoid her, knowing that we have better information now and go elsewhere to get it.

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