From the Telegraph.
Christian relationship counsellor sacked after refusing to give sex advice to gay couples
He said his problems began last year after he started to train as a psychosexual therapist, treating people’s intimate sexual problems.
He said: “In counselling, you are drawing the couple out, going on a journey with them, enabling them to think in more than black and white. You are not telling anyone what to do or endorsing what they do.
“But in sex therapy you are diagnosing their problems and setting them a treatment plan, not unlike a doctor.”
He said that while he believed in ‘each to their own’, he felt uncomfortable doing anything that would directly encourage gay sex, and raised the matter with his supervisor.
Fellow counsellors complained about Mr McFarlane’s views, alleging he was homophobic, and he was suspended last December by his manager.
After three weeks, he was reinstated and had to promise to abide by Relate’s equal opportunities policy, with the proviso, he claims, that he could raise issues in the future.
Following further complaints, however, he was told that he would face a disciplinary hearing because managers at Relate Avon no longer believed he intended to uphold the policy. He was dismissed and his appeal was rejected.
Picture this: a homosexual couple are having sexual difficulties. Nothing odd about that really, since their plumbing is all wrong for sex. So what do they do? They search high and low for a Christian sex counsellor for advice; eventually they find Gary McFarlane. But he is not only a Christian who disagrees with gay sex in the first place, he is also a heterosexual – what we used to call normal – and has difficulty relating to what goes where in homosexual copulation. The homosexual couple is not to be deterred: they insist that only Mr. McFarlane can advise them on the sexual conundrum of maintaining intimacy when the parts don’t fit.
Which brings home the point that the person at Relate who fired Gary McFarlane is an idiot.