Monday, April 19, 2010

Supreme Court, gay rights and religion

Today the US Supreme Court heard arguments in a case about religious freedom and gay rights. A Christian law student group at the University of California Berkeley was denied official recognition as a campus organization because they would not admit gays and lesbians, based on the religious views of the organization.

The Christian law student group's argument was that the university can't dictate who they must admit to their group, because that infringes on their religious right to admit only that who follow their (narrow, right wing) beliefs on who is a Christian. I can kinda see that, but I think that the opposing argument is stronger.

The university argues that any group of people has the right to choose who to admit to their group. But to gain official recognition, and the funding that goes along with it, all groups have to agree not to discriminate based on sex, sexual orientation, race and a few other criteria. The religious law students refused to do that, but want the funding and official recognition.

Based on the press reports, the two female justices pointed out the obvious - if one group is allowed to discriminate based on sexual orientation, another group may want to discriminate based on sex or race, and asked if that should be allowed.

This court is quite conservative, and I think will come up with the wrong decision. They will probably require the university to recognize the Christian law group. There is a middle way though. The court could decide that the Christian law student group has the right to exist, but the university does not have to recognize them if they will not agree with the university's requirements for recognition.

This case is not directly about gay rights, but whether a group has to follow a university's requirements to treat sexual orientation discrimination in the same way that race or sex discrimination is treated.


This is totally unrelated, but I wanted to welcome a new follower, LetMeDieFirst. You have an interesting screen name and avatar. I don't see that you have a blog, so don't know anything about you. If you want you can post something introducing yourself and telling us about you, or not, whatever you want.

10 comments:

  1. I agree that the group can exist, but the school shouldn't support them if they don't follow university policies. reminds me of a case here where a pro-life group had their university club status revoked because they violated Guelph's policies on students rights (they held a "life fair" which was more anti-choice than pro-life)

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  2. the middle ground seems like the best way to go. hopefully the court will make the right decision

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  3. I think the Christian law group has the right to exist and do whatever they want - inclusive or exclusive of anyone based on their own criteria. That being said - I think they can kiss the university funds goodbye. UC Berkley is a public school - so public funds are involved. You cannot discriminate when public funds are involved. Hopefully the Supreme Court sees it that way.

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  4. In most cases the SCOTUS will opt for the simplest legal solution that requires a minimum of fuss or change to the status quo. On that basis I'd bet on them saying Fine, Christian group, be and do what you want, but at a publicly funded school you get neither recognition nor money unless you comply with the rules everyone else has to in order to get THEIR recognition and money.

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  5. Thanks for the warm welcome. You like my name? About me I'm 20yrs old live in the USA an am a big animal lover. I'm not much of a poster I like to read I do occasionally post though when I feel the need to do so or if someone redirects their attention to me. I have been doing some reading and haven't decided if I will do a blog or not I'm leaning more on the latter as my thoughts are quite morbid, full of death....don't figure people talk much about that IDK though....

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  6. @Madeleine, Jon and NewLeaf - yeah, letting the group exist but not get university funding if they don't follow university policy would be reasonable, which is the current status.

    @Rob, welcome. I hope that your prediction comes true. That would be similar to the decision on military recruiters at law schools that don't support "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" - if you take government money, you have to follow government rules.

    @LetMeDieFirst - welcome. You might be surprised if you started a blog. There are lots of people out here, and I suspect there will be people interested in what you have to say, but it's totally your decision. Death should be talked about more, in my opinion. It happens to all of us, and our loved ones, but we rarely discuss it. I'm a physician, and I often see families struggle because of the lack of discussion about death and end of life issues.

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  7. Don't Ask Don't Tell is the most ridiculous policy, I still can't believe it's real.
    Wait, so is it the recruiters or the school that doesn't support it? I'm a little confused.

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  8. Hey green and purple, im just wondering what kind of physician you are? I'm not trying to find out who your are or not but im on the premed track and im just curious im interested in the same field your in or if you can give me insight into the med field? thanks for reading my posts and the warm comments and i look forward to your posts!!

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  9. @Madeleine - in the recent past, liberal law schools that didn't agree with Don't Ask, Don't Tell had policies that any organization that discriminated against any of their students couldn't recruit on campus. The government filed a lawsuit, and the Supreme Court ruled that if the schools took government money they had to follow government rules about allowing the military to recruit on campus, even if the school disagreed with the policy.

    Obama has promised to overturn the policy, but he isn't moving quickly.

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  10. @Joe - I practice internal medicine. I just noticed that you are pre-med in your last post. I tried to send you something on formspring asking for your email so that we could talk. My computer at work won't let me access formspring, so drop me an email if you can.

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