(Fruit) Cake and eating it too

You can't discriminate against gay people and at the same time, expect them to fund your anti-gay practices - that's what the US Supreme Court, in a case decided just this week, pronounced in the University of California - Hastings Law School case. (Or, another way of looking at it, a university isn't required to subsidize a student group if it discriminates on the basis of religion or sexual orientation.)

See, there was this group of law students that called itself the Christian Legal Society. In a bid to retain the school funding the Society had been previously enjoying, they sued UC Hastings for supposedly infringing their freedoms of speech and expression. And just how were these freedoms infringed? Well, the law school had this policy that only student organizations which accepted any Tom, Dick and Mary to become members would be qualified for university recognition. If they were selective with membership, like if they didn't accept Jews or blacks, then no recognition. And no recognition meant, no entitlement to receive school funding for campus events, no travel funds, and no office space. 

Well, the Christian band wasn't exactly too Christian when it came to accepting gay or lesbian applicants - in a change of policy that was reportedly mandated by its national mother organization, the Hastings chapter barred students who were engaged in "unrepentant homosexual conduct" from becoming members (I don't really know what that phrase means. Perhaps, if a student hooks up, but he repents after every encounter, he would still be allowed to join?)

So, of course, university recognition wasn't accorded the Society, and this triggered the lawsuit. The repentant group alleged that their views on homosexuality were being stifled by the school - never mind that the school's policy on equal access and non-discrimination on the basis of sexual preference was a mere reproduction of the laws of the State of California.   In other words, the Society was alleging that by cutting off its funding, the school was muzzling the group's non-politically correct views.

Too bad (or rather, thank goodness) these arguments didn't wash with the US Supreme Court. In a split 5-4 decision, the court, through Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, ruled that there was no such infringement. The Christian Legal Society was given the complete freedom by the school to preach its views about the evils of man-love, they were allowed to roam freely in the campus to spread their beliefs, and they were free to exclude unrepentant gay sex practitioners from their ranks - so how exactly were they being muzzled? There was no curtailment of their freedom of speech - they just weren't going to be given school money to spread their views.

As for the funding, the Supreme Court agreed that since university funds were sourced from the tuition and contributions extracted from all law students, including the gay ones, the result would be, if the university gave the Society funding, that the Society would in effect be enjoying money from the pockets of unrepentant sinners, who ironically were being excluded as members of the Society. So where was the justice in that?   In the words of Justice Ginsburg, this policy merely ensured "that no Hastings student is forced to fund a group that would reject her as a member."

The minority in the court, led by the usual conservatives Justices Scalia and Thomas, believed that there was a suppression of the religious beliefs of the Society, but I'm not really in the mood to give their contrary opinion part of my space. Newly installed Justice Sonia Sotomayor went with the majority, which also included the deeply Catholic Justice Anthony Kennedy. Meanwhile, the San Francisco Chronicle agreed with the Supreme Court majority, quoting with approval Justice Ginsburg's opinion, which said "It is…hard to imagine a more viewpoint-neutral policy than requiring all groups to accept all comers."