Forgive me for relying on your OP.
Bricker is participating in this thread and he’s not required to state his opinions in the OP. I don’t see the torturing either. Let’s keep the hostility level to a minimum, please.
It’s really interesting how religious discrimination is becoming ok under the rubric of toleration for homosexuals. The whole ‘intolerant of the intolerant’ canard.
So the school might as well say that no religious groups are allowed under this policy. Surely membership in any group, be it Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddist, Shinto, etc. must require that members actually believe in that religion. And since that is impermissible, then no religious groups are allowed. By definition a religious club discriminates on the basis of religion. It’s a silly rule.
If that policy is enforced, it becomes cloudier. But, on the other hand, I would be interested to see how they do this. If they allow membership for anyone who affirms the Statement of Faith. I wonder if they have equal rules for determining whether it was a true affirmation. If they find someone gets drunk and has sex with his girlfriend, are they treated the same as another male who has sex once with a man? Do they presume that homosexuals are sexually active or do they rely on self reporting for this? How about sexual contact short of intercourse - would a person making out with someone from the same sex be treated differently to someone making out with someone from the opposite sex?
I do feel slightly aggrieved at the shift of the goalposts on this one. They aren’t banning gay members (though I think that they do in practice), they are banning those who engage in or advocate extra-marital sex.
Bollocks. My school’s religious groups did not require belief. I enjoyed attending meetings of the Jewish Legal Society. I was also a member of BLSA and WLSA, despite being neither B or a W…
I think this is a really interesting question. In general I think that groups advocating for more tolerance should bend over backwards to make sure that groups they disagree with are treated fairly as well.
Banning homosexuals is not allowable, but how about banning the advocation of homosexual rights? Just like you would not want to have skinhead racists in your anti-racism meetings, why force others to accept accept members that are fundamentally at odds with your charter?
DanBlather - that just isn’t what this policy does. The details are important. You can run an anti-racist society and exclude skinheads. You just cannot get the benefits from being a recognized student society if you exclude students. No one is forcing anyone to do anything.
Oh, I misunderstood you above. I thought you said that they were not allowed to have clubs on campus that were not officially recognized by the school. In that case, I am ok with it.
When I said “gay and lesbian students” I meant to imply actively gay and lesbian students – that is, students who exhivit “…unrepentant participation in or advocacy of…” homosexuality. But you’re right that the clarification is important. They do not seek to exclude someone who has an attraction to the same sex – just someone who unrepentantly acts on it, or advocates acting on it.
So far as I can tell, there’s nothing in the record below that answers these questions; the policy seems to live or die on its face rather than its application.
That’s right on the money – but also another debate. I think they ARE in practice banning gays, and I am pretty sure they turn a more tolerant eye towards, say, long-term straight couples that sleep together, even though by the neutral application of their words, both are equally violative of the “Statement of Faith.”
CLS’s statement that “A person who advocates or unrepentantly engages in sexual conduct outside of marriage between a man and a woman is not considered to be living consistently with the Statement of Faith and, therefore, is not eligible for leadership or voting membership.” does make me think of O’Connor’s concurrence in Lawrence, though:
One is hardly “participating” in a thread if he’s refusing to offer his own views.
That follows from his attempt at defining tolerance as being something only the tolerant are required to do, that it’s optional for the intolerant. If the old “it’s intolerant not to tolerate intolerance” crap doesn’t seem tortured to you, then perhaps you could reread the numerous past threads in which that’s been asserted.
Let’s fight ignorance, and especially the *promulgation *of ignorance, where we see it.
What does “on campus” mean?
Near as I can tell unless the University officially recognizes you then your club has no access to University resources. I suppose you can meet in your dorm room if you want without official recognition. Is that “on campus”?
Can you rent rooms on campus?
This is the trouble when it comes to anti-gay and lesbian actions, especially when trying to discriminate as an organization. There is no actual enforceable definition of what a gay person is; it too much relies on self-identification to be legally enforceable. So, pretty much, do racial classifications, though no one seemed to care too much back when such laws were on the books. Plessy, for example, supposedly could easily ‘pass.’
This is behavior based - participation or advocacy. But even that is crazily vague. What is unrepetentant participation? If I go home for some kinky butt lovin’ every Friday night, but feel lousy about it for the rest of the week, try my hardest not to do it, but fail regularly, am I allowed to join CLS?
My solution here would be to allow them recognition based on their policy, then bust the hell out of them for enforcing that policy in a discriminatory fashion. Then they can whine all they want.
From a moderating standpoint, I don’t agree. I don’t want to take this further off topic, but let’s discuss the legal issue here and not the posters. Further discussion should go in ATMB.
That’s how I see it.
Waaaaaaahhh!
They are discriminating against us for discriminating!
They are excluding us for our exclusionary policy!
We’re being oppressed! See the injustice inherent in the system!
Uh huh. You gotta tolerate intolerance.
I can’t muster enough snark to give a truly fitting reply.
That’s kinda the way I’m leaning as well. I think their policy, as written, is legally sound. But I am personally confident that they don’t intend to actually enforce it with equal zeal against straight sex as against gay sex.
It reminds me of the hypothetical “Racistville” crafted to discuss Massachusettts’ on-again-off-again policy of letting the governor appoint a senate replacement. In the hypo, Racistville is a town with desirable lakefront property and a town ordinance forbidding any additional construction within two miles of the lake. But when a white property owner seeks to build, the town council meets and repeals the ordinance. The white owner subsequently applies for and is granted a permit, and then the town council meets again and re-enacts the ordinance. A non-white is simply told, “Hey, too bad – there’s an ordinance that forbids construction.” If he should sue, the town’s defense is that the ordinance is race-neutral and forbids all construction. But the reality is that the ACTUAL ordinance, unwritten but effected through practice, is “Only whites may build.” (Much as the unwritten Massachusetts rule is, “Only Democratic governors may appoint replacement senators.”)
So the question is: in Racistville, how many iterations of the ordinance repeal-and-reenact must happen before a factual record may be established? And how many instances of straight couples’ sexual behavior must be ignored before the “real” effect of the CLS may be proven?
I am sure it goes further than just that - if two men sit in the common areas of the law school making out, I have little doubt they would be expelled from CLS regardless of whether it is even considered if they have had sex.
Well, I’m not going to consider Racistville here, as I don’t think it relevant, but I wouldn’t go about it the way you are suggesting. Have a flamboyantly gay man join. Have him run for office and have them disqualify him from running (or expel him). Then complain to the student authorities that there is no evidence whatsoever he has violated the organization’s code - they don’t know he has had sex, and presumably for that time period he has not advocated gay sex.
Or just get sufficient liberal people to join to change the constitution of the CLS. Shouldn’t be tough to do at Hastings.