A Catholic counselor in Oregon has filed a federal lawsuit challenging a $90,000 fine the state imposed after she declined to provide relationship counseling that would affirm a client's lesbian relationship, a stance she says her Catholic faith forbids. The case lands squarely at the intersection of religious liberty, professional licensing, and state anti-discrimination enforcement, and it could test how far a blue state can go in punishing a faith-driven practitioner for following church teaching.
Liesl Engstrom, a licensed professional counselor in Bend, Oregon, filed the suit with representation from the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. She argues that the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries (BOLI) violated her First Amendment rights to free exercise of religion and free speech when it fined her for declining to counsel a client in a way that would require her to endorse conduct her faith considers sinful, Just the News reported.
Engstrom did not refuse to see the client entirely. She provided counseling services to the woman on other matters. But when the client asked Engstrom to provide relationship counseling specifically aimed at supporting and affirming her same-sex relationship, Engstrom declined that particular request. She offered to refer the client to another counselor who could provide that service.
Engstrom has said her Catholic beliefs prevent her from counseling in a way that would amount to blessing or affirming a same-sex romantic relationship. She views doing so as incompatible with Catholic moral teaching on marriage and sexuality.
The client filed a complaint with BOLI, which enforces Oregon's anti-discrimination laws. BOLI investigated and ultimately found that Engstrom had engaged in unlawful discrimination based on sexual orientation in a place of public accommodation. The agency levied a $90,000 fine against her.
Engstrom's lawsuit, filed with Becket's backing, raises both free exercise and free speech claims under the First Amendment. The core argument: Oregon cannot constitutionally compel a Catholic counselor to provide specific counseling content that contradicts her sincerely held religious beliefs, particularly when she was willing to serve the client in other capacities and offered a referral.
Becket has framed the case as one about compelled speech. In this view, the state is not merely requiring Engstrom to serve all clients. It is requiring her to deliver a specific message, affirmation of a same-sex relationship, that violates her conscience. The firm argues this crosses the line from regulating access to services into dictating the substance of a counselor's professional speech.
The case echoes a pattern playing out in courthouses across the country. In Louisville, Kentucky, a Christian photographer won an $800,000 settlement after the city tried to force her to photograph same-sex weddings against her religious beliefs. The legal architecture is similar: a professional claiming the First Amendment shields her from being forced to produce expressive content that conflicts with her faith.
Oregon will likely counter that its public accommodation laws apply neutrally to all businesses and professionals, regardless of the owner's religious motivation. The state has historically taken an aggressive posture on anti-discrimination enforcement, and BOLI has broad authority to investigate and penalize violations.
The size of the fine has drawn sharp attention. Ninety thousand dollars is a staggering penalty for a solo counselor in private practice. Becket has pointed to the amount as evidence that Oregon is not simply enforcing neutral rules but is punishing Engstrom for her religious convictions with a fine designed to be financially ruinous.
For a solo practitioner, a penalty of that magnitude can function as a professional death sentence. Even if Engstrom ultimately prevails in court, the years of litigation and financial pressure create what religious liberty advocates call a "chilling effect," discouraging other faith-driven professionals from exercising their rights at all.
That dynamic is not unique to Oregon. Across blue states, Catholic and other religious institutions have faced escalating legal pressure over conflicts between faith teaching and progressive policy mandates. In New York, Catholic nuns sued the state over a gender identity law that threatened fines and even prison time for their hospice if they failed to comply with pronoun and identity requirements that contradicted their beliefs.
The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty is no newcomer to these fights. The firm has handled some of the highest-profile religious freedom cases in recent years, including the Little Sisters of the Poor contraception mandate challenge that reached the Supreme Court. Becket's involvement signals that the organization sees Engstrom's case as a strong vehicle for advancing religious liberty protections in the professional licensing context.
The legal landscape has shifted in favor of religious claimants in recent years. The Supreme Court's 2023 decision in 303 Creative v. Elenis held that Colorado could not compel a web designer to create websites celebrating same-sex marriages against her beliefs. That ruling rested on free speech grounds and could provide a framework for Engstrom's claims, though courts will need to determine whether counseling constitutes the kind of expressive activity protected under that precedent.
The Supreme Court has also shown increasing willingness to hear cases involving religious institutions clashing with state mandates. The Court recently agreed to take up a challenge by Catholic preschools fighting Colorado's decision to exclude them from a universal pre-K program, another front in the broader conflict between state policy and Catholic institutional identity.
One detail that may prove legally significant: Engstrom offered to refer the client to another counselor who could provide the requested relationship counseling. In religious liberty litigation, the availability of a referral or alternative provider has sometimes factored into courts' analysis of whether the state has a compelling interest in forcing the objecting provider to comply.
If other counselors in the Bend area could and would provide the same service, Engstrom's attorneys will argue that Oregon had no need to conscript a Catholic counselor into delivering a message she finds morally impermissible. The state, on the other hand, may argue that the right to non-discriminatory service belongs to the individual client and cannot be satisfied by redirecting her elsewhere.
This tension, between the dignity interest of the client and the conscience rights of the provider, sits at the heart of nearly every compelled-speech religious liberty case working through the courts today.
Engstrom's case fits into a wider pattern that conservative legal observers have tracked with growing alarm. State agencies in progressive jurisdictions have increasingly used licensing power, civil penalties, and anti-discrimination enforcement as tools to compel compliance with ideological positions on sexuality and gender, even when the targets hold sincere religious objections.
The Department of Justice under the Biden administration drew similar criticism for its aggressive use of the FACE Act against pro-life protesters, a pattern now under formal review by the current Justice Department. In each instance, the complaint from religious conservatives is the same: the government is selectively wielding its enforcement power against people of faith.
Oregon's enforcement posture in this case will face scrutiny on that point. If BOLI has not imposed comparable fines on secular counselors who decline particular types of counseling for non-religious reasons, Engstrom's legal team could argue the state is targeting religious motivation specifically, a claim that would trigger strict scrutiny under the Free Exercise Clause.
The federal lawsuit is in its early stages. Engstrom is seeking injunctive relief to block enforcement of the fine, a declaratory judgment that Oregon's application of its anti-discrimination law violates her constitutional rights, and damages. The case will likely move through the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon before any potential appeal to the Ninth Circuit.
Given the Ninth Circuit's historically progressive leanings, religious liberty advocates may ultimately view this case as one destined for a Supreme Court petition if Engstrom loses at the appellate level. The current Court has shown a receptive posture toward free exercise and free speech claims brought by religious objectors, and a case involving compelled counseling speech could present a new factual context for the justices to address.
Authorities have not publicly confirmed whether BOLI plans to pursue additional enforcement actions against Engstrom or whether the fine will be stayed pending litigation. Investigators will need to determine, and the court will ultimately decide, whether Oregon's interest in preventing discrimination can override a counselor's First Amendment right to decline specific expressive content that violates her faith.
A state that can fine a Catholic counselor $90,000 for following Catholic teaching is not enforcing neutrality. It is picking sides, and the Constitution has something to say about that.
