Photo Courtesy of Alliance Defense Fund

Julia Ward, a counseling graduate student at Eastern Michigan University is appealing a Federal ruling that favored the school’s dismissal of her for her views on homosexuality.

WASHINGTON – It’s a question being raised by counselors and educators across the country: when are religious views on homosexuality an issue of religious and academic freedom, and when are they discrimination?

This July, an Augusta State University student was ordered to undergo “diversity sensitivity” training after she expressed conservative Christian views on the issue of homosexuality. In March, a federal judge supported the Centers for Disease Control in its release of a Georgia counselor who ended a session with a lesbian client to refer her to another counselor because of her religious views. And in Maine last year, a school counselor received complaints for appearing in a TV ad that opposed the state’s gay marriage law.

As the issue of homosexuality has become more acceptable in American society, it appears that conservative Christian views are being phased out from a career that once offered “shock therapy” to treat gay men and lesbian women.

Julea Ward, a conservative Christian student at Eastern Michigan University, was a few credits away from finishing her master’s degree in counseling in 2009. She was in the practical part of the program when she was assigned a student who had previously been counseled about a homosexual relationship.

“She went to her supervisor and said, ‘I may not be the best person for this particular client,’’ said Jeremy Tedesco, her attorney.

Not long after, Ward, who has been directed by her legal counsel not to speak publicly, was brought up on disciplinary charges by her superiors. She was eventually dismissed her from Eastern Michigan for violating the American Counseling Association Code of Ethics and for demonstrating an unwillingness to change her behavior.

On July 26, a federal judge upheld Eastern Michigan University’s dismissal of Ward. Her case is being appealed soon, according to Tedesco, who is from the Alliance Defense Fund, an organization that advocates for the defense of religious liberties and has been active in similar cases.

Tedesco thinks the appeal could take the case all the way to the Supreme Court, bringing the issue to further prominence.

“The judge here definitely got it wrong, in our opinion,” he said. “In my view we’re going to see a trend of more universities doing this.”

Ward’s and other cases have left some professionals wondering whether Christian views opposing homosexuality are compatible with the counseling profession, and whether such views are protected in their profession under the auspices of religious freedom.

So, to what extent should students and professors be allowed to express religious views that chastise homosexual behavior?

That’s still unresolved – but it appears that there’s little tolerance for it, even in the purely academic realm.

Two professors, one in California and one in Illinois, are also being backed by the Alliance Defense Fund in their suits against higher education institutions that fired them for classroom statements that betrayed a less-than tolerant position on homosexuality.

These cases have shed light on a strain within the counseling community. Students in psychology and counseling are subject to the American Counseling Association Code of Ethics instead of university rules that rely on the principles of academic freedom.

Ward’s legal team says the codes are unconstitutional and should not be a basis for discipline, especially at public universities.

“It’s a big difference between teaching a code of ethics and enforcing them,” said Tedesco. “Those kind of policies can’t withstand constitutional scrutiny.”

University administrators disagree, saying they have to abide by professional standards if they want their students’ degrees to be taken seriously in the workforce.

“We have to go through accreditation standards,” said Walter Kraft, Eastern Michigan University vice president for communications. “We have to honor whatever guidelines might exist.”

Ward was given the option to leave the program outright, appear in a formal hearing or complete a remediation program.

Psychology and counseling professionals point out that there are instances in which it is appropriate for them to deny their services, like Ward did, when there is a conflict of interest, a close relationship or unchangeable bias. They say that in practice, counselors and psychologists need to be as open-minded as possible, given the myriad of personalities they encounter.

“A professional needs to be able to work with a wide range of populations,” said Clinton Anderson, director of the office on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Concerns at the American Psychological Association. “That’s a necessary thing when you’re talking about competence.”

Ward’s actions were inappropriate given her chosen specialty, Anderson said, which is school counseling. He said like those working in rural or poorer communities, school counselors are usually strapped and don’t have another provider to whom they can refer a student.

Eastern Michigan University, known for its educational and counseling programs, has never encountered a case like this before, according to Kraft.

But the issue of religious bias against homosexuality has been around as long as universities have been training psychologists and counselors, says Anderson, and a sexual orientation anti-discrimination clause has been in the American Psychological Association’s ethics code for more than 20 years.

He thinks it’s the work of organizations like the Alliance Defense Fund that has brought the issue outside the internal workings of universities and colleges.

“What may be new about it is that there are very active law firms who are prepared to file suits,” he said.

In the past year alone, the defense fund has taken up at least four cases dealing with the clash of religious views on homosexuality in higher education institutions.

China’s $3.4 billion investment in the Aynak copper mine is the largest in Afghan history and, when the contract was signed in 2007, offered hope of development and stability in Afghanistan. With little indication since then, though, that China has made progress on the two coal-fired power plants and roads it promised to build, raising concerns that China may not be the engine the U.S. had hoped would kickstart a legitimate Afghan economy.

“The Chinese have done nothing to contribute to the local economy,” said Tom Lynch, research fellow for Near East and South Asia at the National Defense University Institute for National Strategic Studies.

Afghanistan is consistent with its ventures in other parts of the world. China has proved an unreliable investor in natural resources, rarely contributing to local communities like it promises and often leaving the land scarred with ecological devastation, Lynch said.

“The Chinese have a checkered record at best,” Lynch said. “They don’t deliver, and when they do, they’ve left a trail of heartbreak.”

The U.S. supports the Aynak investment project, and in fact has insisted on such investments from China, Lynch said. But concerns over China’s business ethics and its refusal to provide military support in Afghanistan have some experts worried Chinese investments will create more instability.

With an estimated $1 trillion in untapped minerals, Afghanistan should be the new frontier for Chinese investment. China’s deep pockets and voracious pursuit of energy resources make it an ideal candidate to spur mineral development and generate a legitimate source of revenue for the Afghan government. The Aynak mine, in Logar province in eastern Afghanistan, could add more than $200 million to the Afghan national budget each year and create an estimated 30,000 new jobs, according to the U.S. Institute of Peace.

The Chinese have relied on U.S. and international troops to keep their investors and mining projects safe. While the Chinese are responsible for their own security at Aynak, because they have not sent their own troops Afghanistan, they hire Afghan National Police. U.S. and NATO troops are responsible for building and training the Afghan police.

“Directly or indirectly, ISAF (International Security Assistance Force, the coalition of troops in Afghanistan) is in some way trying to secure Afghanistan for these projects,” said Kenneth Katzman, leading Afghanistan expert at Congressional Research Service, the nonpartisan research arm of government.

China traditionally only sends military outside its borders for United Nations peacekeeping missions. Although U.S. diplomats have asked for Chinese forces in Afghanistan, China has made no commitment to provide military even in a noncombat role, according to a Congressional Research Service report on Afghanistan released Monday.

“I think they’d be very reluctant to do that, especially if they can get the U.S. or other troops to do it,” said Frederick Starr, chairman of the Central Asia-Caucuses Institute, a research and policy center affiliated with Johns Hopkins University. “You could well have a situation where U.S. troops are guarding a Chinese mineral field.”

The war in Afghanistan didn’t stop China from moving quickly and spending lots of money on Aynak, even without military assistance. China is heavily invested in countries of conflict, including Sudan, Angola and Democratic Republic of Congo – all countries where armed conflict is funded in part by mineral reserves.

Allegations of bribery that have since mired the deal have concerned some experts that China’s investments will set the precedent for of corruption in mining contracts, which could further destabilize Afghanistan.

“I think China has been driven by insecurity more than rational economics,” said Steve Coll, president of the New America Foundation and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of several books on South Asia conflict. “It hasn’t always produced the most economical results.”

Experts predicted the Aynak project would cost $2.2 billion, but state-owned Metallurgical Corporation of China made a deal Afghanistan couldn’t refuse. The railway, which is funded by the Asian Development Bank, is in the early stages of construction and will be used primarily to export minerals to China. The deal was “generous to the point where I might not be commercially profitable for China,” according to the Congressional Research Service report.

Former Afghan Minister of Mines Mohammad Ibrahim Adel was ousted after the deal, accused of taking bribes from the Chinese. The U.S. Institute of Peace called for more a transparent contracting process, warning that unfair contracts could fuel more conflict.

Katzman is a bit more forgiving in his assessment of the Aynak deal: “This is Afghanistan. This is not Donald Trump going out to bid,” he said.

China is competing with India for the Hajji Gak mine near Kabul that is said to contain more than 60 billion tons of iron ore, according to Congressional Research Service. The contract could be awarded early next year, when China and Afghanistan will have another opportunity to prove their commitment to creating a mining industry free of corruption. If the Chinese continue scooping up big-ticket contracts, other competitors like India would be pushed aside.

“It would produce intense frustration,” Lynch said.

A little regional economic competition, though, isn’t nearly the threat to Afghanistan security that the Taliban is, some experts argue. Chinese investment practices may have less oversight and transparency than the U.S. would like, but the two countries share the same security goals in Afghanistan. China has grown increasingly concerned about the Taliban spilling over the small border the two countries share, according to Congressional Research Service.

“The Chinese have national interest in stability in Afghanistan,” Coll said. “The more active they are in promoting stability and being concerned about how to contribute to stability, the better off everyone will be.”

In Washington, Twitter was once just another fringe social media site — more the domain of Hollywood glitteratti than elected officials. But it’s becoming increasingly routine for members of Congress to break news, communicate with constituents and campaign through tweets.

Extra: Congressman Latta and Congresswoman Pingree share their thoughts on connecting with constituents back home, via Twitter.

What would it feel like to be unable to find the words to verbalize what you wanted to say to someone? Or to be unable to understand expressions like “raining cats and dogs” because your mind works concretely and you interpret everything literally? Or to be constantly on sensory overload in what others see as normal environments?

This is just a snapshot of what it can be like to be autistic. Despite the numbers — the Centers for Disease Control say an average of 1 in 110 children in the U.S. has symptoms of Autism Spectrum Disorder – scientists are unsure what causes it and whether the cause is genetic or due to an outside trigger, or both.

The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences hopes to answer these questions through groundbreaking research. But it will take some time.

One study, Early Autism Risk Longitudinal Investigation, is looking at 1200 mothers who have had one autistic child and are pregnant again. The study will follow each mother-child pair from the beginning of pregnancy until the child is three years old.

“The strategy is that is that if there are environmental influences, the most important time to follow the pregnancy is well before the birth,” said M. Daniele Fallin, associate professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “We’ve intentionally tried to make [the study] as broad as possible.”

The study began in January 2009 and is expected to run seven years, Fallin said. There are no conclusive results this early.

“We believe very strongly that there is an environmental component, and probably a predisposing genetic factor, but there has to be a trigger,” said Rita Shreffler, executive director of the National Autism Association, a parent-run nonprofit in Nixa, Mo., who has two children diagnosed with autism. “It’s a very understudied area.”

Autism Speaks, a science and advocacy organization, is a financial supporter of the EARLI study. Its executive director, Ann Gibbons, said they support the study ideologically as well as fiscally.

“The way genes are turned on or off is related to something,” said Gibbons. She has a 22-year-old son, Philip, who is autistic. “Environmental factors can refer to a lot of things – in addition to air pollution or chemicals in household cleaners, whether a mother is exposed to certain germs or a neurotoxin when a child is in utero may have an effect on the child’s development.”

Mothers of autistic children tend to agree with what the EARLI study is looking for.

Sunday Stillwell of Owings Mills, Md., has two sons, Sam, 7, and Noah, 5, who are severely autistic. Autism is classified on what’s known as “the spectrum,” and variations of the disorder run the gamut from high-functioning to severe.

“Both my boys have seen geneticists who feel very strongly that something genetic has caused their autism, only because it’s very rare to have more than one child with autism, and it’s especially rare to have two children with severe autism,” Stillwell said. “And I believe there is an environmental factor that triggers autism in a child, but we just don’t know.”

Jean Winegardner of Wheaton, Md., is raising three children; her seven-year-old, Jack, is autistic. Jack has what is referred to as PDD-NOS, or Pervasive Developmental Disorder – Not Otherwise Specified, and Winegardner said he is high-functioning. Her attitude toward autism’s cause is similar to Sunday’s.

“I think that there is a very strong genetic component to autism,” Winegardner said, “I don’t know what else might contribute to it … I just don’t know.”

Winegardner agreed that research should be done, but said she believed there were other areas to focus on as well.

“It is important to figure out what causes autism, but that has never been my focus, even when Jack was first diagnosed,” Winegardner said. “I am more concerned with making sure individuals with autism and their therapies are covered by insurance and that there are treatments available for the people who can benefit from them.”

WASHINGTON—There’s a looming threat to our oceans – and it’s not from an oil spill or melting ice caps.

The administration has identified ocean acidification as a priority.

The under-covered threat surfaced last month when President Barack Obama signed an executive order that adopted the final recommendations of the Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force.  The group put ocean acidification high on its list of looming environmental issues for waterways.

In simple terms, ocean acidification is the absorption by the ocean of increased amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere that leads to a decrease in the water’s pH level.

For those who forgot high school chemistry, the pH scale is a measure of how acidic or basic a substance is on a scale of 0 to 14. A neutral substance, like pure water, has a pH of 7. Battery acid has a pH of 0, while liquid drain cleaner has a pH of 14.

Before the Industrial Revolution, the pH of the world’s oceans was 8.2, said Richard Feely, a senior research scientist with National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory. Since the 18^th Century, the pH has dipped to 8.1 and the best predictions say oceans could reach a pH of 7.9 by the end of the century. That doesn’t bode well for marine life.

Think about it in human terms. We have a highly controlled pH of somewhere between 7.35 and 7.45. If the human body’s pH decreased .2 units, it would go into a coma. So imagine what could happen to all the marine organisms that are less resilient than humans.

What we do know is the shellfish community on west coast is already suffering. In some areas where Pacific oysters live, the water pH is as low as 7.7. Their larvae are finding it difficult to survive because they don’t get to the point where their shells can fully form. It’s causing an impact to the point where there has been a decrease in production over the last five years, said Feely.

This gives rise to another major concern stemming from ocean acidification: a decrease of carbonate ions in the water. These ions are necessary for the production of shells in creatures like crabs and oysters.

“What is known from observing individual species is that it looks like bivalves are most susceptible to the carbonate ion decrease,” said Sarah Cooley, a postdoctoral investigator at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts.

This can lead to a number of problems for aquatic life—many are chain reactions.

First, low carbonate ion levels affect bivalve development, often causing them to have smaller and weaker shells. Smaller and weaker shells make bivalves more susceptible to predators. That susceptibility leads to decreased production of mollusks in general. In the broader case of mollusks, fish eat their larvae. If there is decreased production, there is less for the fish to eat and that could affect the whole food chain.

At the top of the food chain, human seafood consumption might ultimately be affected. According to Feely, 20 percent of our protein resources come from the sea, with many, such as island nations particularly dependent.

Twenty-five percent of fish spend part of their lives in a coral reef ecosystem. If they are lost, so are many of the fish that depend on that system for survival, Feely said.

According to a report of the World Resources Institute, Reefs at Risk in the Caribbean, fisheries in Caribbean coral reefs account for US$310 million annually. Damage to these resources could cause a $95 million decrease in revenue by 2015.

Like bivalves, corals also affected by the decrease in carbonate ions.

“With corals, the research has shown that almost every species shows a decrease in calcification rate with an increase in carbon dioxide levels,” said Feely.

Aside from being home to a multitude of organisms that support businesses and provide food, coral reef ecosystems protect coastal areas. Specifically coral reef structures shield coastlines from severe storms by causing waves to break farther from land. If that structure breaks down, then storms could have a more devastating effect.

Cooley cites the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. Areas that were not protected by coral reefs were harder hit.

Feely points out that ocean acidification is a global-scale problem and the only way to properly address the issue is to reduce carbon dioxide emissions dramatically—80 percent by 2050.

Cooley agrees that carbon dioxide emissions need to be cut, but to totally fix the problem is not feasible. She said she only way to get the ocean back to its original pH would be to roll back atmospheric carbon dioxide to pre-Industrial levels.

She suggests addressing other smaller problems like fertilizer runoff and proper fishing management. If the ocean is going to have to take one for the team, tackling the stresses we know we can conquer means less for the ocean to have to overcome.

Luke Sharrett is just 21, but he’s already had hundreds of photographs published in The New York Times. A year ago, Sharrett began what was supposed to be a three-month stint as the Times’ White House photojournalism intern. But his bosses were so impressed with the quality of his work — and his character — that the internship was extended. Over and over again. Sharrett quickly became just like another member of the press corps. He left the White House a couple of weeks ago to return to Western Kentucky University, but not before getting a nod from the leader of the free world, President Barack Obama himself, and absorbing the wisdom of some of the best photojournalists in the business.

Luke Sharrett, on being yourself behind the camera.

Doug Mills, on making mistakes.

Doug Mills, on attitude.

Luke Sharrett, on the changing world of media.

Or face the consequence of a daunting walk around the outside of one of the world’s largest buildings trying to find the reporters’ entrance.

Some facts:

• Each of the five sides of the Pentagon is about 925 feet; that’s just shy of a “click” in military speak, or just a hair over half a mile.
• Any reporter who isn’t a regular Pentagon reporter – and the rules are pretty stringent on who qualifies as regular — must have an escort from the Department of Defense media staff to get in the building.
• According to its press conference announcements, DoD media staff will escort reporters from one location only: the parking lot adjacent to the river entrance.
• The river entrance is on the north-facing side of the Pentagon. The Pentagon Station Metro stop is on the side that faces southeast, a distance that would be about a mile if there existed a path hugging the edge of the building.

But in what universe would the home of the entire U.S. defense apparatus just allow anyone to walk along the side of the building? These are people who eat, sleep and breathe national security. You keep your distance.

There is, in fact, no sidewalk between the Pentagon Station Metro stop and the river entrance, which is used only for invitation-only events (reporters are invited to press conferences).

There is a highway with a beaten-down, pebbly little path beside it. There is no shade. The breeze that gets kicked up is from the cars zipping past and comes with a payload of road dust and gravel. The path takes you to a walkway leading over the Jefferson Davis Highway, through a parking lot and back across a pedestrian overpass. There’s a guard shack in the middle of this overpass where you can wait for someone to come escort you in.

Lt. Col. Robert Dutchey, a Pentagon spokesman, recommends that newcomers get in touch with the press office beforehand. A press office staffer can meet you somewhere easy, like the visitor’s center, and give you an orientation of the building.