Brian Dickerson: Bill Schuette, Civil Liberties Champion!

[+EdwardGlen]

fyi;

 

The way a politically ambitious fellow such as Bill Schuette advances is by bending the fears and resentments of such voters through the prism of public policy

 

http://www.freep.com/article/20110318/COL04/103180441/1001/news

 

Does Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette really care whether Eastern Michigan University reinstates a student who was dismissed from the school's graduate counseling program for refusing to counsel homosexual clients?

 

The superficial evidence suggests he cares a great deal.

 

In a friend of the court brief filed this week, Schuette asked the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn a lower court ruling that EMU was within its rights when it suggested that Julea Ward -- a former graduate student who maintains that her Christian beliefs preclude her from ministering to gay and lesbian clients -- find another course of study at another school.

 

And because it's exceedingly rare for the state's top law enforcement official to intervene on behalf of a civil plaintiff suing another state agency, Michigan taxpayers might reasonably conclude that 1) the constitutional violation asserted in Ward's lawsuit must be a matter of profound public importance, and 2) Schuette must believe passionately in Ward's cause.

As it happens, there is little evidence to support either conclusion.

 

Legal analysts say Ward's lawsuit is significant because it will force appellate judges to specify the circumstances, if any, in which a public university's right to prescribe curricular standards trumps a student's religious liberty.

 

But this is not a particularly hard case. Ward maintains she cannot counsel gay students in good conscience because she believes homosexuality is an immoral choice. Just ask yourself what would happen if a counselor-in-training refused to counsel Christians or Jews on the grounds that to do so would compromise his or her own religious convictions.

 

My primary purpose, though, is not to litigate the merits of Ward's lawsuit, but to examine Schuette's motives in backing her cause.

 

It is difficult for me to believe that Michigan's attorney general shares Ward's antipathy toward gays and lesbians. He's a career politician who has served with numerous capable gay professionals, and neither I nor any other journalist I know has witnessed any evidence of the homophobia some gay rights groups have ascribed to him.

 

But neither has Schuette made a career of championing the religious liberties of others; to the contrary, he has been a vocal critic of those who engage in such advocacy -- at least when they are defending speech and religious minorities he does not like. It is inconceivable, for instance, to imagine Schuette intervening on behalf of the California prison inmate who filed a lawsuit challenging that state's authority to cut his hair in violation of the inmate's Sikh religious beliefs.

 

The constitutional issues raised in that case are strikingly similar to those posed by Ward's lawsuit. But Sikhs, of course, do not constitute a significant voting bloc in this country, so it would be shocking if Schuette or any other elected official went to bat on behalf of one with a rap sheet.

 

What we do have in Michigan is a significant number of Republican voters who are hostile to universities and gay people in general and especially to universities they suspect of coddling gay students at the expense of God-fearing young ladies like Julea Ward.

 

The way a politically ambitious fellow such as Bill Schuette advances is by bending the fears and resentments of such voters through the prism of public policy.

 

It does not matter to such a man whether the Julea Wards of the world prevail, or whether the legal arguments they advance have merit. All that matters is that voters who identify with someone like Ward see Schuette rushing to her defense.

 

So it would be equally foolish to conclude that Schuette hates you because you're gay or that he loves you because someone's trying to trample your religious rights; he's just looking out for Bill Schuette.

 

It's what politicians have always done -- and it's the opposite of leadership.

 

Contact Brian Dickerson: 313-222-6584 or bdickerson@freepress.com

[+Silverblue]

Very interesting what people will and will not make an issue of, if it suits their agendas or not. It sure does seem like all politicians care about is staying in office, and they'll stop at nothing to keep their cushy jobs. I know they're not ALL that way, so let me make that perfectly clear, I'm not generalizing. It is upsetting how people do let their beliefs get in the way of doing their job.

 

Sb

[greenbuddha]

Would A.G. Schuette also defend the 'religious rights' of a 'Rastafarian' that wanted to smoke his 'sacramental herb'?

 

I strongly suspect he would NOT.

 

The elections in 2012 can not get here soon enough.