The 30-member Hastings group [the Christian Legal Society] was told in October 2004 that it was being denied recognition, including university funding and benefits, because of its policy of exclusion [of gays, lesbians, and nonbelievers].The U.S. District Court ruled against the group, rightly denying them taxpayer funds.
The school's attorney gets carried away with his victory, saying . . .
more . . .
"The court has ruled that there is no constitutional right to discriminate."Well, no they didn't; and yes there is. It's called the "freedom to associate", and the government is told to keep its hands off it in the First Amendment. But he is right in saying that Universities don't have to subsidize the bigots.
I am going to let you in on a little secret of my past: I belong to a national professional Engineering fraternity. In fact I have been a past national officer of said organization. Back then–before most of our current readership was born–this fraternity did not admit women. (In even earlier years, it did not admit blacks.)
Well, guess what. There were some Universities and Colleges that objected to our membership policies, and denied us official recognition. Did we go whining to the courts to force the schools to accept our policy: No. On many campuses we had to exist without official status. We made our bed and we had to lie in it. We recognized ourselves that discrimination against women was not justified in a professional organization such as ours and, through a painful process that cost us some chapters in the short term, we changed our bylaws to allow women to be admitted. My younger sister became my fraternity brother a few years later.
So, I have no sympathy for these clubs that want to discriminate—and then want to be federally funded, too.
