Empowering physicians to refuse treatment to patients with whom they have political and other differences.

The effort is alive right here in Tennessee which can boast about having Marsha Burn the Blacks Blackburn and her hair as our senators.

In Tennessee secular mental health therapists can legally and “ethically” refuse to work with LGBTQIA clients. I am gay. Moved back to rural East Tennessee where I grew up to spend some early retirement time.

My doctoral minor was pastoral care and counseling. Though I cut the clinical portion short I still learned a few things. I know when I need some objective support.

So the search began.

I had a talk therapist tell me at the end of our initial session to see if we are a match: “For the sake of transparency I need to tell you that I’m a Christian. I believe what the Bible says about homosexuality. But I don’t think it’s a worse sin than any other. As long as you’re comfortable with that I think we will be fine. I really like the joy you exude when talking about your children.”

I said, “FOR THE SAKE OF TRANSPARENCY, I think you haven’t caught on to the fact that I’m a theologian of the PhD variety. And I need to let YOU know that you don’t know shit (oops, sorry…I should have used the version that appears in the Bible as Paul did: skebola) about what Hebrew and Christian scripture say about homosexuality, the preferred marriage model during the times most books in the Hebrew Bible and the finalized collection of Christian scripture books were being written—namely polygamy, or Jesus’ personal or pastoral theological framework.

So, nah. We won’t be fine.

Shame on the University of Tennessee and the State of Tennessee licensing people for certifying your competence.”

Now, my physical heath wasn’t at risk. At a VA,however, it might well have been if I’d gone there to have some mystery ailment diagnosed.