Atheist Mom Forced Into Court-Ordered Christian Counseling
In a flagrant church-state violation a New Mexico mom loses her children after refusing to attend court mandated Christian counseling sessions.
KRQE reports Holly Salzman was hoping to get some help co-parenting her 11-year-old twin boys with her ex-husband, but instead she says she got 10 court-ordered religious sessions that she did not want.
Salzman said:
I walked into the session and the very first thing she said to me was, I start my sessions by praying. When I expressed my concerns that I didnt pray she said, well this is what I do and she proceeded to say a prayer out loud.
Salzman, a single mother of two, said she felt so offended and disgusted that she stopped going to the court-ordered sessions. The result was that the court took her kids away.
Salzman reports:
Its probably the worst thing Ive ever been through in my life.
In order to regain custody of her children, Salzman was forced to complete the faith based counseling despite her objections, and despite the fact that she is not religious, and does not believe in God.
KRQE reports that in every counseling session there were handouts with quotes from Psalms and other religious sources, and religious based homework such as one activity titled Who is God to me?
In a series of undercover videos the court mandated Christian counselor repeatedly forced the issue of God and Christianity into the counseling sessions, despite the fact that her client had no interest, and found the discussion of religion in the context of the counseling sessions offensive.
In one secretly recorded session the counselor told Salzman:
The meaning in my life is to know love and serve God. If you want to explore how God was in your past, how God was in your life and not in your life I know you dont believe in God which is fine but I know at some points he was in your life in some way.
It is hard to imagine something more obnoxious, or more infuriating, than being forced to endure some holier-than-thou Christian counselor explaining that God really was in your life, despite the fact that you dont believe in God.
And it is heartbreaking to note that if a mother does not quietly endure the abuse of the obnoxious Christian counselor, her children will be taken from her by the courts.
Commenting on the story, Peter Simonson, ACLU Executive Director, said:
No one should be put in a position where they are forced to accept training or therapy that violates their own religious beliefs and morals.Weve got protections in our country under the Bill of Rights are intended to try and stop that. On the face of it, it looks pretty problematic.
Problematic is an understatement. This is despicable, and a clear violation of Salzmans civil and constitutional rights.
To be clear, there is nothing wrong with being a Christian counselor, but as a Christian counselor, one must be honest and upfront with ones clients about ones biases. In addition, clients must be free to refuse Christian based counseling if they are not Christian. Otherwise, the counselor is being unethical, and unprofessional.
Clearly it is wrong for a court to mandate Christian counseling, and it is wrong and unethical for a licensed counselor to force religion on a court-mandated client who is not interested in religion.
As for the Christian counselor, identified as Mary Pepper, according to reports her proselytizing to court mandated clients is not her only unethical activity. Pepper does her court-mandated counseling surreptitiously at the public library to avoid overhead, and in so doing illegally forces her local government to subsidize her business expenses. Plus, she demands cash payments from her court mandated clients, presumably to thwart the IRS.
As for Peppers background, she is a Catholic extremist who used to be a parent educator at Project Defending Life, a radical anti-abortion group.
The good news is that Salzman completed the counseling sessions, and she has her kids back again. Lets hope she gets a good lawyer and sues everybody responsible for this despicable debacle.
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Gee, I wonder why atheists are so angry.
Typical for the Christian right. I would think that this violates a number of laws, especially the constitution that they are so fond of quoting.
And they are complaining about the war on Christians. What a frickin' joke.
Disgusting! I go to therapy every two weeks (non-court ordered, but good for me) at Jewish Family Services (lower co-pay then my medical group therapist), even though I'm not Jewish and neither is my therapist. Religion is never brought up as she knows I'm an atheist and with religion out of the way, we can concentrate on what my therapy is really about. THAT is how therapy is supposed to work! It's there for the patient, not the therapist and she is a very good therapist.
This "therapist" needs to be shutdown and the judge severely disciplined by the Bar Association!
The issue here is mutual respect.
No one should be trying to force others into a belief system, no matter the faith, or non-faith.
Counseling is not cheap, so I'm sure she was making a pretty penny from this scheme. Perhaps she will be busted for tax fraud as well as conspiring to trample someone's civil rights.
Fingers crossed.
What numbskull ordered this?
He needs to be dis-appointed, or impeached, or whatever.
It's true that atheists don't proselytize. Not only are we not organized, what would we say? We'd knock on someone's door and when they answered, we'd just stand there. Though I have always thought it would be funny to carry a copy of Dawkin's "The God Delusion" around with me and go up to strangers on the street and say something like "Have you heard the good news that there is no god!"
This is the crux of the matter. We have a separation of church and state in this country. I don't see how religious counseling can be forced on anyone. There is no justification for that. It seems that she has a great case to sue.
There's no excuse for faith based counseling being forced on anyone, it's also a flagrant violation of church/state separation. This is still a secular country.
That's disgusting.
Hal and Randy,
I was talking in generalities and while that might not apply in this story, please give me you spin on these billboards:
Exactly
Interesting message. They "know" there is no God, spoken as a certainty. Certainty implies proof , of which atheists have none.
Of course atheists proselytize. Not all, all the time, but most, some of the time or some most of the time , when the subject comes up.
Everybody should read the book or view the movie "The Handmaid's Tale".
Great film, intense social commentary and scary prediction.
I saw the movie and loved it!
Yup: great "scarlet letter" tale modernized (scifinized) and very well done.
I have zero respect for atheists who do proselytize atheism, because they are proselytizing about nothing at all. It's the same with the morons who hold meetings in what they actually called a Church of Atheism. Such a place and such people do exist, but no matter what they call themselves they are not atheists. However, this is a semi-free country and the most religious person in America can claim to be an atheist. The second atheists start to organize, they are not atheists any longer, because they are really just forming a new religion, an anti-religion and is an absurd concept to think of atheism as a religion of any kind. It is not a different belief system, it is the opposite of one. It is the absence of one. Atheists are not anti-god. We just know there is not one.
You believe there is not one.
I am not going to go through with this dance with you again. I know there is no god. You are the one claiming that something exists for which there is no evidence of. The burden of proof is on those making the claim of the existence of a god, not on those of us who know there is not one. If you claimed there are Leprechauns, it would be up to you to prove it, not on us who know there are not to prove they don't exist.
Not being able to prove something doesn't exist is absurd. You say there is one? It's up to you to show there is one. It's not up to me to show there isn't one. I know there is not a Santa Claus who spreads presents every Christmas eve for all of the good children of the world in one single night. I grew up and know there isn't one. I know with the same certainty that there is no god. You believe in Santa Claus? Prove it.
We are never, ever going to agree on this.
I can respect that.
People often ask independents why there is no independent party.... talk about an oxymoron.
(scifinized)
Great term !
When I divorced my last wife we had two sons together. In Michigan (at that time anyway) there was a court ordered mandatory 6 month cooling off period in divorces involving children and mandatory counseling during that time at county mental health, either as a couple or separately, on if the marriage can be saved and how to deal with co-parenting if it can't be. The counselor reports to the judge before a divorce is granted.
You Rock Larry!
I agree that proselytizing about nothing is silly Randy, but if the crux of the message falls into the "You are Not alone" category I'm OK with that.
After all there's still a strong bias against atheists in America even to this day.
Note the polls showing how low the chances are foran avowed atheists to be elected President or the language that is still in 7 of our State constitutions that single out atheists for specific forms of discrimination.
The discrimination in those constitutions won't hold up in a court of law but the people of those States still will not remove the language.
So, sitting in a pew, burning candles & singing hymns, "Oh there's nothing there", "Ohhosanna, there's nothing there". Just stupid.
Hey brother/sister, you're not alone. Fine.
This is neither Christian ("Love one another, with no exceptions" nor American (separation of church and state).
Other than that...
Randy,
1) It is impossible to prove a negative.
2) "I know there is no god."
3) Knowledge without proof is faith.
In other words, you are presuming that your faith is truer than others' faith.
"I know there is no god" is a faith-based affirmation, just as surely as "I believe in God".
AH,
Good point.
What you are calling proselytizing, I would consider to be payback for having religious billboards spread all over the damn place. Just like when the Satanists wanted a statue on statehouse grounds, it isn't being done to proselytize, it's being done to put religion back where it belongs - on the hundreds of thousands of tax exempt private properties that they own. If they insist on going elsewhere, they will get a dose of their own medicine.
You would NEVER see an atheist billboard if they weren't preceeded by a barrage of religious billboards.
Your vision of god is to me, what the Cargo Cult vision of god is to you. It's all relative.
Ya think there's maybe a few more "Jesus saves!" than "Yay atheism!"?
I kinda think you're right..
In other words, you are presuming that your faith is truer than others' faith.
That is not a statement of faith. It is in fact just the opposite of one. Atheism is not another form of faith, it is knowledge of truth, unless proven otherwise. It is no faith in anything at all. It is the lack of belief, the lack of a faith, not a different one. The opposite of believing in god is not that you believe in something else, such as there is no god. That would make atheists as nothing more then anti-god and we are not. We don't believe that there is no god, we know there is not one.
The believers in a god are the ones making an extraordinary claim, that something exists for which there is no evidence of (like Santa Claus or Leprechauns), so the burden of proof is on them, not on atheists. If there really is a god, prove it. Since they do believe in a god, they can not conceptualize not believing in something, of having no belief, so they have to try to turn atheism into not believing in god, but that's not what atheism is. I know there is no god. They believe there is. That's a huge difference.
I agree that proselytizing about nothing is silly Randy, but if the crux of the message falls into the "You are Not alone" category I'm OK with that.
True word. It's always nice to know that there are other atheists out there.
Randy,
I was going to make another effort... but then I reached your "Santa Claus or Leprechauns". That's both insulting and dismissive.
Have a nice day.
Hal,
I don't see anyone trying to prove that leprechauns exist... and I, for one, am not trying to prove that God exists. On the contrary, I stated that faith in God is internal, requiring no evidence... and by the same occasion is not provable to others.
I am saying that the statement "God does not exist" is a statement of faith, because a negative cannot be proven.
Agreed.
LOL! I guess.. kind of... can we have an amen?
Perfect!
He was holy!