Christians Sue for Right Not to Tolerate Policies
Christian groups (mostly on college campuses) are upset that tolerance codes prevent them from expressing their beliefs about homosexuality or accepting non-heterosexuals (or people who don’t have a problem with that) as members.
Christians are fighting back in a case involving Every Nation Campus Ministries at California State University. Student members of the ministry on the Long Beach and San Diego campuses say their mission is to model a virtuous lifestyle for their peers. They will not accept as members gays, lesbians or anyone who considers homosexuality “a natural part of God’s created order.”Legal analysts agree that the ministry, as a private organization, has every right to exclude gays; the Supreme Court affirmed that principle in a case involving the Boy Scouts in 2000. At issue is whether the university must grant official recognition to a student group that discriminates.
The students say denying them recognition — and its attendant benefits, such as funding — violates their free-speech rights and discriminates against their conservative theology. Christian groups at public colleges in other states have sued using similar arguments. Several of those lawsuits were settled out of court, with the groups prevailing.
I think student groups should certainly have the right to express their opinions and to choose their membership as they wish; the rest of us have the right to either ignore or picket the bigots. I don’t like the idea of tax dollars going to support such groups, though. Actually, I don’t understand why the funding of religious student groups by state universities doesn’t appear to be controversial at all; it seems like a violation of the establishment clause to me. And if universities start making judgments about groups’ stated beliefs before awarding funding, that definitely sounds like a problem.
But the solution to this issue looks pretty simple to me: stop funding student groups with university money. There’s no need for official recognition at all, in fact; any student should be able to reserve unused classroom space for any (legal) purpose, while more popular spaces (like large auditoriums) should come with a fee.
I don’t see why student groups need university funding at all; most of it appears to go to free pizza and copying expenses. If the groups are popular enough, they shouldn’t need to bribe students to attend meetings, and if flyers weren’t so heavily subsidized I suspect most groups would move to more-effective, less-annoying advertising like emails to interested students rather than polluting the campus with brightly-colored paper.
Groups that attract enough interest should be able to fund whatever needs they actually have with member dues, bake sales, and outside donations. While many college students will claim that they couldn’t afford to pay dues, this isn’t true for most of them (and if the “activities fee” went away as a result it would be true for even fewer). For those few individuals who really can’t scrape up any extra cash without skipping meals, groups could certainly waive fees. As an added bonus, this might cut down on the number of annoying people who join every group around as a resume-padding tactic.
And it would spare university resources by cutting down on a useless bureaucracy as well as legal fees resulting from denied funding.
April 14th, 2006 at 10:39 am
I agree with your opinion that student groups should not be university-funded. Makes perfect sense to me.
I would, however, take issue with this phrase: “… ignore or picket the bigots.” Mainly with your use of the word bigot.
Do you honestly believe that someone who believes a certain way about a subject like homosexuality due to their religion is a bigot?
April 14th, 2006 at 12:09 pm
Certainly not all of them are; I’ve met plenty of people who hold particular religious beliefs about homosexuality whom I would definitely not call bigots. I don’t agree with their opinions, but that’s fine and we can disagree respectfully.
But the vast majority of the people who feel the need to broadcast their negative opinions about homosexuality to people who haven’t asked for an opinion are, in my opinion, bigots. I doubt that the bigotry is caused by their religious beliefs (though the beliefs certainly give them a good excuse); these people would most likely be jerks anyway.
April 17th, 2006 at 4:05 am
I was surprised to read that you thought “student groups should certainly have the right to express their opinions and to choose their membership as they wish” - you seemed then to qualify this with the thought: so long as they’re not tax-funded. So you think it’s OK for private clubs and organisations to discriminate? All white golf clubs, or all male “gentlemen’s” clubs?
In Britain, we’ve said really firmly that this is absolutely NOT ok, for a number of reasons, one of which is that these sorts of organisations become bastions for establishment types to do business and make deals that perpetuate the sort of discrimination that keeps white, straight, middle class men on top. In fact, the only place where it’s still a struggle is with gentlemen’s clubs - there are still a few where, although “ladies” are allowed inside, they can’t be members. But this will change.
I don’t see why there’s a problem with simply disallowing discrimination for any reason whatever, including on the basis of sexual preference. I can understand why this might not be practically feasible in the US at the moment, but I was really surprised that this wasn’t your opinion from the start - why?
April 17th, 2006 at 7:30 am
I generally don’t think it’s OK for private organizations to discriminate, but I don’t think it should be illegal. Private citizens have the right to choose with whom they wish to associate. I may strongly disagree with their choices, and refuse to join such clubs or publicly denounce them, but I still think they have the right to be chauvinistic or bigoted if they wish to.
I think the difference here is really one of degree. Individuals discriminate in their private lives all the time - for example, most people discriminate quite strongly on the basis of sex when they’re looking for romantic partners. Nobody would support a law prohibiting people from placing “man seeking woman” personal ads. And groups of friends have all-male poker nights, or all-female baby showers. While some people find that sort of thing distasteful, I doubt many would want it to be illegal. Yet, what’s the difference between a regular guys’ poker night and a men’s golf club?
Clearly they’re not exactly the same thing, and the golf club is probably more likely to become a bastion of the establishment, as you describe - which is certainly a problem, and something I absolutely don’t approve of. But I’m not sure exactly how you draw a legal line between them, given that they’re both collections of private citizens choosing their own associates.
Granted, I’m not going to spend a lot of energy fighting laws that prevent organizations from discriminating on the basis of race or sex, but just because I happen to agree with that particular prohibition doesn’t mean I support the legal strategy in general.
April 18th, 2006 at 9:31 am
I haven’t run to the dictionary to look up the exact definition of discrimination, but to me, any private group should be free to choose it’s members (and as a result, end up excluding some segment(s) of the population).
This is America after all!
There is nothing in the world wrong with the Boy Scouts saying they don’t want leaders who believe in certain things — things that the organization is absolutely opposed to. Why would a private organization want a leader who opposes what the organization stands for? That’s self-defeating! That would be like asking Al Gore to be the head of the Republican Nat. Committee … it would go against what that organization is actually there for.
There’s nothing wrong w/students at a university forming a group of like-minded fellow-students. They just shouldn’t be taxpayer-funded.