Posted on 08/06/2011 6:26:09 AM PDT by ZGuy
A federal appeals court ruling this week could significantly diminish public university religious groups' ability to restrict membership and leadership to students who agree with their teachings.
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday that San Diego State University's nondiscrimination policy for officially recognized campus groups is constitutional. The policy is based on a nondiscrimination policy used at all the schools in the California State University system.
Two Christian groups sued SDSU in 2005, alleging the policy violated their free-speech and religious-freedom rights. For the groups to be recognized as official campus groups, they were required to allow all students to be members, even if their beliefs were contradictory to the group's beliefs.
The three-judge panel disagreed, stating the policy is a "rule of general application" that is not unconstitutional in its intent. "[We] do not doubt that, regardless of [SDSU]'s purpose in enacting its nondiscrimination policy, the policy will have the effect of burdening some groups more than others," circuit judge Harry Pregerson wrote in the panel's decision. "But the fact that a 'regulation has a differential impact on groups wishing to enforce exclusionary membership policies' does not render it unconstitutional. Any burden on religion is incidental to the general application of the policy."
The Ninth Circuit is the first court of appeals to make a decision in a case like this since the Supreme Court handed down a ruling last year that the Hastings College of Law in California could require student groups to open membership and leadership to all students, even critics.
The school says campus groups cannot restrict membership or leadership positions "on the basis of race, sex, color, age, religion, national origin, marital status, sexual orientation, physical or mental handicap, ancestry, or medical condition, except as explicitly exempted under federal law."
(Excerpt) Read more at christianitytoday.com ...
I don’t know everyone seems to be upset about this. Now I can be the Catholic Church’s first Protestant cardinal.
Open to non-Christians and open to Trojans intent on destroying from within is quite different. No Christian group, or any other group for that matter, wiccans, Catholics, Hindus, or athiests, would allow someone who fundamentally disagreed with the organizations bedrock principals to have a meaningful say in the direction of the organization. What is happening on campuses is liberals are attempting to infiltrate or blatantly break into Christian organizations for the sole purpose of running them off campus.
Cool, know I can join the black and Islamic Unions on campus.
I can hear the screams of intolerance when a bunch of straights take over the LGBT(whatever)Club and bring in speakers on how to get out of the Gay lifestyle.
I have not read the decision and so I cannot take a side at this point, but in terms of facts you must keep in mind that it is the Christian group that brought the suit to be permitted to close its doors.
I don’t know, it seems like it could be a good thing for a Christian to have a non-Christian wanting to hang out with him. it would be a good time and place to influence them toward Christ.
And if those clubs are smart, they won't say a word. I am a conservative white male, but if you looked at my resume from Law school organizations that I belonged to, you would conclude that I was a liberal black female. I had a lot of fun and we all got along pretty well. Having said that, I did go to a pretty conservative law school, e.g. the president of the Environmental law forum loved fox hunting with all the bells and whistles (horses, hounds, horns, etc...). And yes, she did look pretty good in her "whites and reds."
And this is where the Left really gets creative; with it's contrived definition of "public." It's becoming increasingly obvious that the Left considers anything with even a tangential relationship with the government to be "public." So, walking on a sidewalk to a private club meeting can be arguably deems as "publicly funded" to the moonbats.
You do get the entire point of “force” versus “allowance,” right?
Their "benefits" are likely limited to posting rights on campus announcing meetings/events or an ability to lease a booth during student orientation.
Students fees are sucked up by sports, primarily to cover hundreds of thousands in insurance premiums for traveling teams.
Sports neatly avoid these inclusion rules by having "try outs" and thus limiting their rosters legally. Title IX lets them escape co-ed sports by having separate-but-equal programs for men and women (but wait, that's not necessarily require now either). Where transgender players are supposed to go, I'm not sure. I digress.
This ruling means any group can be taken over by organized disruptors. A Christian group can be overrun by angry atheists and destroyed from within. In theory, a gay club could be overrun by traditional marriage proponents and so forth.
We'll see how that goes or whether this is another case of "some are more equal than others" where anything deemed dominant, male or mainstream must be inclusive to its own dilution and peril while anything deemed minority can be exclusionary to protect and strengthen its unique identity and preserve diversity.
Women fall into the second group despite being more than half the population. It's all about balancing the tyranny of the evil patriarchy of course. /s
I suggest students TEST this ruling by joining clubs they wouldn't otherwise and see if they're tossed out for disagreeing because--gasp--they're accused of creating a hostile environment threatening to a favored group.
I believe non-Christians were trying to infiltrate the leadership positions.
I must ping this tomorrow.
Thanks ZGuy.
>> So, then can Jews and Christians join Muslim organizations too?
No, you can’t do that. That’s crusading.
Well, the dime goes to the overall university environment. I don’t think anything consensual between students carried on and advertised entirely outside campus would fall under even this ruling, but who knows.
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