Pastor or Secular Counselor? Interesting Church/State Case

There's a very interesting church/state case before the Texas Supreme Court: a pastor who is also a licensed secular counselor is being sued by a woman who claims that he used information from their counseling sessions against her in the church. She says she met with him as a secular counselor, even though he was also her pastor, and that the sessions should have been confidential.

The pastor argues that he met with her as her pastor and that he used the information given to him for appropriate church discipline against her. He further argues that this makes the situation a religious matter which the courts cannot get involved in without violating the separation of church and state. A trial judge agreed with the pastor; an appeals court agreed with the woman.

[Rev. C.L. "Buddy" Westbrook, pastor of CrossLand Community Bible Church] met with church elders and later distributed a letter about [Peggy] Penley's decision to get a divorce. The letter said she was involved with another man, although it didn't specify the nature of their relationship.

The letter urged church members to shun Penley as part of a "tough love" approach for her to see her errors.

Penley and her husband divorced in 2001, and she married the other man. She then sued, challenging Westbrook's actions as a counselor under the Texas Licensed Professional Counselor Act.

Source: CBS 11

If nothing else, this should be a lesson to people: when a person who wears "two hats" in your life, don't meet with them in a capacity that causes a conflict such that one role would require that your communications be kept private but the other role might allow the information to be used more publicly.

Buddy Westbrook also should know better than to allow such a conflict of interest to be created — I don't know what the rules are for licensed counselors in Texas, but I would have trouble believing that there wouldn't be any rules against such conflicts. At the very least, the licensing board should look into his action and consider disciplinary action. His being a pastor cannot shield him from that.

Now the state Supreme Court is dealing with it and they appear to be uncomfortable:

The justices raised several questions in Tuesday's oral arguments that suggested they were struggling to decide if the case would drag them into church doctrine.

"We're dancing on the head of a pin," trying to separate the issues, said Justice Harriet O'Neill.

I am not a lawyer, obviously, but if Peggy Penley has any evidence that she went to see Buddy Westbrook in his capacity as a secular, professional counselor, then she should have a basis for suing him.

Penley's attorney, Darrell Keith, said the case was not about church doctrine but Westbrook's professional responsibility as a licensed counselor.

He said Penley had already established a secular counseling relationship with Westbrook and she considered all her meetings with him to be based on that relationship, not a religious one.

As Penley's professional counselor, Westbrook pressured her to divulge information he would use against her as a religious figure, Keith said.

"This is not a case that is an affront or abridgment of religious liberties," Keith said.

As I note above, Penley made a mistake in going to Westbrook in this capacity and Westbrook made a mistake in allowing sessions to occur in this way. Both made mistakes. Nevertheless, it really does look like Westbrook is the one who had the professional responsibility to stop things and, therefore, has to pay the price for misusing confidential information.

Westbrook chose to become licensed as a secular counselor and that license necessarily comes with obligations that are separate from his role as a pastor — they cannot be joined completely. Among those professional obligations is to keep information from counseling sessions confidential unless specifically directed to do otherwise by their client. Based upon the reports I've read, it seems clear that he obtained information in his role as counselor then revealed it in his role as pastor. That is unethical, immoral, and unprofessional.

The separation of church and state cannot shield a religious leader who voluntarily takes on other roles in society and then violates legal or ethical standards for those roles.

 

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