At WorldNetDaily you can read about a new move afoot to force “all new lawyers to swear they won’t let their personal religious perspective on homosexuality affect their representation of any client.” According to this report, “the [Arizona] state bar is considering a major change to its existing oath that requires lawyers to affirm they won’t “permit considerations of gender, race, age, nationality, disability or social standing to influence my duty of care” to clients. The proposal in Arizona is to add “sexual orientation” to that list. “
Such a change to the lawyer’s oath would subject an attorney to possible bar complaints and legal discipline, including disbarring, if he refused to represent gay clients or refused to take certain legal actions on behalf of an existing gay client. Many ethical medical doctors have already had to deal with problems like this when they attended medical schools that required them to perform abortions as part of their medical training. If they performed an abortion in order to pass a medical school class, then they were forced to violate and defile their conscience.
Now the same heavy-handed immoral tactics appear on the horizon concerning attorneys throughout the United States. We need to understand exactly why this issue is so important with great clarity.
First, these actions attempt to force attorneys to accept, represent, affirm, and fight for the interests of a class of people which many attorneys believe to be involved in immoral and evil behavior.
Second, acting according to such an oath would force many attorneys to represent clients whose objectives contradict the attorney’s moral conviction. For example, I have represented many men and women in custody disputes regarding their children. I have never knowingly represented a lesbian or homosexual in an action attempting to secure custody rights for her or him. In fact, when I was legislator in the 1990’s I introduced a bill that would have made foster care by homosexuals illegal in Missouri. I have a very simple and moral reason for these actions, I do not believe that it is in the best interests of a child to be raised or nurtured by homosexuals.
Finally, I believe it would be appalling to be forced by law to do that with which I morally disagreed. In fact, I would resign my license to practice law before I would violate my conscience. It would be better to farm the land, build tables, or plumb houses than to violate my conscience by actively helping destroy society through a willingness to promulgate and encourage immoral and evil behavior.
Look around. Evil ascends and becomes acceptable while loud voices and lawless laws condemn and destroy those committed to morality. We who believe in right and wrong must stand up now while we can. If we don’t, “night comes when no one can work.”