Should a student religious group at a public university be allowed to bar a certain group of students from membership, such as gay students, without losing its official student-group status, and the funding and other benefits that go with it?
Federal appellate courts are undecided which is why a California case is making its way to the Supreme Court. On April 19, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in a case involving the Christian Legal Society at the University of California Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco (Christian Legal Society v. Martinez). The student group refused to accept gay students or any others who did not share the group’s beliefs.
The Supreme Court’s decision will determine whether religious freedom includes the right to discriminate on the basis of gender, race or sexuality? And whether authorities have the right to foist their values on religious groups by leveraging meeting-space privileges and threatening to withhold funds? And the most challenging question is whether the principle of “tolerance” can be invoked to benefit conservative Christians?
What do you think?
