Michigan Physician Assistant Valerie Kloosterman was exercising her First Amendment right to practice and express her faith when she requested a religious accommodation to her employer’s requirement that she use “gender-identity-based pronouns” and participate in or refer patients for “gender-dysphoria-related surgeries and drugs.”
In an 11-page, single-spaced Sept. 27, 2022, letter to officials with University of Michigan Health and University of Michigan Health – West, attorneys with First Liberty Institute told the health system that it should reinstate Kloosterman to her position and “assure her that, going forward, it will fulfill its legal obligations to respect its employees’ religious consciences.”
Firing Kloosterman violated the First Amendment, Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, and various Michigan statutes, according to Michael Berry, senior counsel for the Plano, Texas-based public interest law firm that specializes in defending religious freedoms.
The letter noted that “before firing Ms. Kloosterman, Michigan Health blatantly denigrated her religious beliefs, attempted to compel her to speak against her conscience and make referrals for medical services that violate her conscience, discriminated against her for her religious beliefs, and refused to reasonably accommodate her religious beliefs.”
Those actions were carried out against a 17-year employee who had consistently received superlative performance reviews, including one in which her supervisor observed that “Valerie goes way beyond the call of duty when dealing with patients, follow up and professional responsibility. She is very ethical [and] responsible and treats all with respect.”
Jordan Pratt, also a senior counsel with First Liberty, observed in a statement regarding the Kloosterman firing that health care professionals should never have to choose between practicing their faith and keeping their jobs.
It’s bad medicine to force religious health care professionals to choose between their faith and their job. Valerie provides excellent medical care for every patient, but she cannot in good conscience refer patients for experimental drugs and procedures that violate both her religious convictions and her medical judgment. Nor can she use biology-obscuring pronouns that violate her religious beliefs and could cause patients to miss potentially life-saving screenings. It is intolerant of Michigan Health to demand that medical professionals like Valerie abandon their religious beliefs and their medical ethics in order to remain employed.
At the center of this controversy is Kloosterman’s strong, principled religious faith, which is precisely what the Founders intended to be protected by the First Amendment. It would be no different if Kloosterman was an atheist and had been fired for refusing to participate in compulsory prayers or Bible studies as a condition of employment.
Berry made clear in the letter the vital role Kloosterman’s faith plays in her life and her life’s work:
Ms. Kloosterman is a Christian and longtime member of a United Reformed Church. She believes that God created humankind male and female, that one’s sex is ordained by God, that one should love and care for the body that God gave him or her, and that one should not attempt to erase or alter his or her sex, especially through drugs or surgical means.
She believes that she must not speak against these truths by using pronouns that contradict a person’s biological sex. As a Christian, she also believes that God has ordained the sexual function for procreation, that children are a gift from God, and that—absent compelling reasons—one should not sterilize oneself. Moreover, as a Christian medical professional, she believes that it would be sinful to assist a patient in procuring sterilizing drugs or surgical procedures designed to erase or alter his or her sex.
In her medical judgment, according to the letter, she views “hormone therapy” and “gender reassignment surgery” as experimental procedures that thus far lack credible validation in peer-reviewed, long-term studies. She also believes such procedures result in damaging side effects, including bone density loss, infection, nerve damage, chronic pain, loss of sexual and urinary functions, psychological trauma, and other serious complications.
Kloosterman asks only to be reinstated and be assured of her ability to continue providing medical care to all who need it and come to her. If the University of Michigan Health refuses to do so, this case will almost certainly end up in federal court, where it is difficult to see any outcome short of the justice she seeks.
Let it also be noted here that woke trans madness includes a dangerous intolerance that cannot abide individual freedom of choice and reflection was made clear during Kloosterman’s lengthy attempt to obtain a religious accommodation by Thomas Pierce, program director for the Department of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI), who insisted that she use the mandatory language and prescriptions.
When she respectfully indicated that she could not do so because of her religious beliefs and because of her independent medical judgment, but that she would use patients’ names in place of pronouns to respect their wishes, Thomas Pierce grew hostile, visibly angry with tight fists and a flushed demeanor, and attacked her religious beliefs.
Among other things, he told Ms. Kloosterman that she could not take the Bible or her religious beliefs to work with her, either literally or figuratively; that given her religious beliefs against gender identity based pronouns and “gender reassignment surgery,” she was to blame for transgender suicides; and that she was “evil” and abusing her power as a health care provider.
Clearly, diversity, equity and inclusion do not include men and women of faith for ideological obsessives who have no qualms whatever about using every power at their disposal to force the rest of us to think and act as they do.
They are, in short, the enemies of freedom and human creativity.
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