Justice Scalia made this comment publically during arguments for Christian Legal Society v. Martinez: “It is so weird to require the campus Republican Club to admit Democrats, not just to membership, but to officership. To require this Christian society to allow atheists not just to join, but to conduct Bible classes, right? That’s crazy.”
Scalia is wrong. First, he’s wrong about the facts. Hastings College policy is that no group will receive financial support from the college if it has a policy of excluding people due to religious belief or sexual orientation. So the Republican Club would not have to admit Democrats.
Second, Scalia is wrong about who can study the Bible. It’s not just Christians. It’s not even just Christians and Jews. Anyone can study the Bible. And anyone who is knowlegable about the Bible could conduct such a study group. If this group is holding meetings where people are required to hold particular religous beliefs then I would argue that their meetings are worship services not study groups.
Most atheists in the US and other countries with a large percentage of Christians are quite knowledgeable about the Christian Bible.
Last night my husband and I went out to dinner. The server noticed that I wasn’t looking at all well, and inquired about my health. Then she asked if I was Saved (and yes, I could hear that capital letter in Saved). I answered that no, I’m an atheist. She asked why and how I’d turned atheist. I told her that I read the Christian Bible several times as an adult, did some studying, and lost my faith. I then told her a couple of examples, like the mistranslation of “witch” and the guy who offered up his virgin daughters to be raped all night. This quite upset her, but she started it. I’m sure she would have tried to convert me if I’d shown any interest in it.
If they are really Christians, then it would seem to me they’d welcome the involvement of atheists. After all, surely being in close proximity, and studying His word, would be the best way to bring them closer to the Lord. I mean, isn’t that what Jesus taught us all to do? To carry His word, right? . . . humbly and faithfully, and without grandiosity. Wasn’t that the gist of it?
The whole thing is just confusing the heck out of me. If you want to start a church, or hold a worship service, then do so. But there’s no reason why you should expect the rest of us to contribute toward it. You know that part of the service where they pause to collect contributions? Do they walk outside with the basket and thrust it under the noses of people passing on the street?!?
As I recall, the concern in the case was the large numbers of persons hostile to the Christian group – think of a platoon of Der Trihses – would join and vote in officers that did not have a genuine interest in Bible study from the perspective of a believer.
I spent 10 minutes looking at the case, and it’s a quagmire. From the poorly constructed record, to the miniscule 9th circuit opinion, to the confusion at the oral argument, it appears to me that the case is ill prepared and should not be used to set a major precedent.
That was Alito’s contribution to the proceedings: “Say there is a small Muslim group; it has ten students. If the group is required to accept anybody who applies for membership, and fifty students who hate Muslims show up and they want to take over that group, you say First Amendment allows that?”
A reasonable policy would be to ban any individuals who are genuinely disruptive from future meetings - not to pre-emptively exclude an entire class of people because you theorize they might become disruptive.
I read that there was also a request for some funding. Nothing major, I believe it was some travel expenses for one of the group’s members to attend a national meeting.
In your example, the students are not disruptive. They are calm and polite. By “take over,” he meant that by sheer numbers they would dominate the elections and elect their own officers, thus taking over the group.
This case is not about whether discriminatory groups should be allowed to exist, or to exclude whoever they want. It’s about whether such groups should be able to use public resources to facilitate their existence. Period, end of story.
I agree with the school.
And I think it would be an interesting experiment in democracy if, for example, the membership of the "Campus Democrats’ decide at a meeting that they will all go over and join the "Campus Republicans’ and destroy their group from within. Or vice versa. I don’t have a problem with schools not funding Repbulicans, Democrats, Greens, Klansmen or any other political or religious groups.
But if they take over the group, and then start disrupting things, that’s still disruption. If they take over the group, and yet are still forced on pain of expulsion to not be disruptive, i’m not sure I see that there’s a problem.
If they take over the group, then completely change the group’s purpose through democratic means, then the group is essentially dead. All groups with small minority viewpoints are subject to the whims of the majority to change their mission.
Where I grew up, churches were always splintering over, to my view, fairly arcane points of doctrine. I’m not a Christian, so I don’t really understand what the disputes were, but you’d see churches with congregations of 30 people split up and then get into nasty fights which wound up in court.
So, supposing this Christian Legal Society gets into this type of doctrinal dispute, and splits along say, Catholic and Protestant lines. And then the Protestant group splits along all the various denominational lines. And then those start splitting on various arcane theological lines. And all of these various groups demand all of their members comport to their theology. Should the school be required to fund all of these membership-exclusive groups?
Where does the atheist part even come into this? The Hastings Christian Legal Society wasn’t/isn’t miffed about the entry of atheists, but the entry of LGBT Christians, because being queer isn’t compatible with the Society’s definition of Christianity. Was Scalia muddying the waters of the argument here or what?
“To require this Christian society to allow atheists not just to join, but to conduct Bible classes, right? That’s crazy.”
Isn’t requiring a group to accept as teachers people who say they disbelieve the course material bizarre? Does a car dealership have to hire salesmen who say these cars are bad? The quote talks not about study of the material, but teaching it.
I know nothing of the case and imagine issues like whether groups in this setting may be exclusive on religious grounds could be critical. Maybe it’s more a question of what kinds of organizations can exist under the umbrella of a college or university or school. But the Scalia quote itself, whether it is applicable or not, suggests an obvious truth, I think.