The KKK, which plans to be in full costumes, will be protesting at the campus on Oct. 23 from 1-4 p.m. Spurlock said he had talked to school officials about the protest.
“It’s your constitutional right, so how could you tell someone you have to do something completely different?” Spurlock told the Chronicle. “We’re not out to harm her. We’re trying to protest the constitutional rights that they are trying to take away from her.”
Spurlock also said the KKK has not been in contact with Keeton.
“She is no way whatsoever affiliated with us,” he said. “She has not contacted us, but we were contacted by someone that is aware of her.”
Keeton, who is represented by the Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian organization dedicated to defending “traditional family values,” sued July 21 and alleged her First Amendment rights were violated because her biblical opposition to homosexuality — that she would state in class and to other students — went against the professional code for being an ethical counselor.
A federal judge ruled Aug. 20 that Keeton does not deserve a preliminary injunction against Augusta State University for requiring her to follow a “remediation plan” to help her learn to separate her religious belief that homosexuality is immoral from her duty as a counselor not to impart her personal feelings to patients.
U.S. District Judge J. Randal Hall issued an order denying the preliminary injunction because Keeton did not meet the requirement of “establishing a substantial likelihood of success on the merits of her lawsuit.”
Hall noted that evidence thus far, including ASU faculty testimony at a recent hearing on the preliminary injunction, was consistent with ASU’s position that “it was not [Keeton’s] personal beliefs that were their concern, but rather only her inability to separate her personal beliefs in the judgment-free zone of a professional counseling situation, as mandated by the ethical standards incorporated into ASU’s curriculum.”
The judge also stressed that the case should not be viewed as “pitting Christianity against homosexuality.”
“This case is not about the propriety of Plaintiff’s views or beliefs, or any of the Augusta State University counseling faculty’s views or beliefs, regarding the topics implicated in this case,” Hall wrote.
“Despite any suggestion to the contrary, this is not a case pitting Christianity against homosexuality,” he wrote.
“This case is only about the constitutionality of the actions taken by Defendants regarding Plaintiff within the context of Plaintiff’s Counselor Education masters degree program at Augusta State University, and no more,” he said.