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The zero-sum game extends to "creedal discrimination"

This article in Christianity Today concerns my PhD alma mater, Vanderbilt University.

Tish Harrison Warren is a "priest" with the Anglican Church in North America and worked with InterVarsity at Vanderbilt University. From 2011 onward, Vanderbilt developed and eventually enforced a policy that no recognized student group on campus may have any creedal requirement for its leaders. It appears that the immediate trigger for this new policy was the putative ousting of an openly homosexual leader from one religious group.

Warren was shocked and assumed that something could be worked out for her own "moderate" group. After all, she says, her group isn't "homophobic" (whatever exactly she means by that word). Nor did they have any reference to sexual conduct in their requirements for leadership of their campus group. They did, however, require (for leadership roles, though not for membership) the affirmation of basic Christian doctrines such as the resurrection.

But as Warren continued to talk to administrators, she learned just how hard-core they were.

I once mustered courage to ask them if they truly thought it was fair to equate racial prejudice with asking Bible study leaders to affirm the Resurrection. The vice chancellor replied, "Creedal discrimination is still discrimination."

Warren came to understand just a little bit about the zero-sum game:

For me, it was revolutionary, a reorientation of my place in the university and in culture.

I began to realize that inside the church, the territory between Augustine of Hippo and Jerry Falwell seems vast, and miles lie between Ron Sider and Pat Robertson. But in the eyes of the university (and much of the press), subscribers to broad Christian orthodoxy occupy the same square foot of cultural space.

The line between good and evil was drawn by two issues: creedal belief and sexual expression. If religious groups required set truths or limited sexual autonomy, they were bad—not just wrong but evil, narrow-minded, and too dangerous to be tolerated on campus.

It didn't matter to them if we were politically or racially diverse, if we cared about the environment or built Habitat homes. It didn't matter if our students were top in their fields and some of the kindest, most thoughtful, most compassionate leaders on campus. There was a line in the sand, and we fell on the wrong side of it.

It's mildly interesting to me that she almost seems to think that it's fine for groups to "limit sexual autonomy," but she rather cagily doesn't say whether her group limited sexual autonomy (even implicitly) or whether she thinks it would be "homophobic" for some other group to limit sexual autonomy. Beyond saying that she is not a "homophobic culture warrior" and leaving the reader to draw his own conclusions she doesn't even say what she thinks about the issue of homosexuality that set off the entire train of events.

This is particularly striking since her own denomination's history is deeply bound up with that issue. The ACNA got started (not all that long ago) because of the ordination of Gene Robinson to the episcopate in the ECUSA. While the ACNA does ordain women, it has generally been regarded as conservative on the wrongness of homosexual acts.

I'm going to make a conjecture about Warren, but I admit that my probability for it is at no more than 50%, with error bars on either side. I'm going to conjecture that, if pressed to the point that she felt she had to answer, she would state that homosexual acts are wrong, but that she feels so uneasy about this position that she suppresses it as much as possible and tries to avoid allowing it to have any implications concerning policy. I'm going to conjecture that, confronted with an out and proud homosexual who wanted to be a leader in one of her campus groups, she would go through a lot of angst and soul-searching, with the outcome up in the air as to whether she approves him as a leader in the end or not.

I could be wrong about this. Her position might be a lot more liberal than that. (Side note: I just spent about ten minutes googling and couldn't find Warren saying anything more definite about her position on homosexuality or homosexual rights. That's not a lot of time googling, and I'm happy to admit I may have missed something, but I'm a pretty decent Googler, and I'm a little surprised to have found zip in that time period.) I consider this a charitable conjecture, based on the mixed evidence of her comments about not being "homophobic" and the stance of her denomination. If the conjecture is right, though, it means that Warren is an absolutely classic example of the person who has never previously grokked the zero-sum game and who thinks that, as long as she is as gay-friendly as she can possibly find a way to be, she will be accepted.

To be fair to Warren, I'm a little surprised myself that Vanderbilt took matters in this totally anti-creedal direction. I would have expected something a little different. I would have expected instead that Vanderbilt and other secular colleges would permit a requirement that the leaders of student groups believe in the resurrection or the Trinity but that they would require the groups to state explicitly that they would make no restrictions whatsoever on the sexual behavior of their student group leaders. The group's administration might even have to sign something to this effect and advertise it. So student group leaders could be promiscuous heterosexuals, married heterosexuals committing adultery, homosexuals with many partners, homosexuals with one partner, polyamorous, or whatever. Beyond that, yeah, you could require that they believe in the Trinity, because that belief would have been safely marginalized to a metaphysical realm with no behavioral consequences in the pelvic area, which is the realm of greatest concern to the culture warriors of the left.

That would have been my prediction, but I was wrong. Postmodernism and an absolutist form of relativism (yes, of course I recognize the contradiction there) turn out to be even stronger than that among the power-hungry Vanderbilt administrators. Creedal affirmation itself is seen as a threat. Warren's conjecture is shrewd when she says,

Like most campus groups, InterVarsity welcomes anyone as a member. But it asks key student leaders—the executive council and small group leaders—to affirm its doctrinal statement, which outlines broad Christian orthodoxy and does not mention sexual conduct specifically. But the university saw belief statements themselves as suspect. Any belief—particularly those about the authority of Scripture or the church—could potentially constrain sexual activity or identity.

The Vandy administrators are able to read and know that the Bible does condemn homosexual activity and also that Christian morality has traditionally condemned it. Therefore, they realized that someone who affirms the resurrection might feel that he was no longer as free as he was before to go on engaging in sexual acts with just anyone.

No doubt that is a big part of it, but I'm inclined now to think that the theoretical relativism has become an end in itself. All creedally defined groups have to be deconstructed. That is where Warren got off the bus.

As her above comments show, Warren has learned some things from this. It's difficult to say where she will take her musings in the long run. Supposing my charitable conjecture to be correct, I'd like to think that she will eventually be willing to condemn immoral sexual behavior more openly, now that she realizes that the left regards her and Jerry Falwell as sharing the same "square foot of cultural space," despite all her attempts to lean left. Hecatombs of Habitat houses and "social and environmental justice" will not satisfy the implacable god of the homosexual left, so you might as well "come out" and say what you really think.

I take some hope from this:

That probationary year unearthed a hidden assumption that I could be nuanced or articulate or culturally engaged or compassionate enough to make the gospel more acceptable to my neighbors. But that belief is prideful. From its earliest days, the gospel has been both a comfort and an offense.

Very well put. So...

One of the saddest notes in the story is this:

A group of professors penned a thoughtful critique of the new policy, but remained silent when sympathetic department heads warned that going public could be "career damaging."

Did they not have tenure, or what? When I was there in the 90's, I saw a bit of this, but I would like to think that at that time some professors would have spoken out nonetheless. At that time the big issue was "speech codes," and there were a few professors, both liberal and conservative, who were agin' them. I'm pretty certain they have all retired by now, though.

In this follow-up, Warren gives some more details. For example, she explains that she decided that she should not sign the agreement Vanderbilt demanded even though perhaps their group would not be taken over by hostile elements. I think this is to her credit. The statement said that the group did not discriminate on the basis of, inter alia, religion, and of course their intent as a religious group was indeed that leaders had to be Christians. (Ya think?) As Warren points out, the issue does really come up, because sometimes a student leader will deconvert in the middle of a semester and then try to continue being an officer of a Christian student group in order to use it as a platform for atheism. So this is not merely a theoretical possibility. She also says that at some other colleges such as Harvard this issue of not allowing creedal groups has come up, and the college has rejected this ridiculous policy.

I should add that she doesn't say whether Harvard requires the on-campus groups to promise not to discriminate on the basis of "sexual orientation," where that of course includes sexual behavior, and that she doesn't say (if so) whether Intervarsity signed on. If that is what happened, that would fit with my prediction, above.

Practically speaking, this new phase of the culture war and the zero-sum game is going to require all Christian campus ministries to start thinking fast. That includes not only Intervarsity but also Navigators, Cru, Ratio Christi, and probably a lot of others I'm not thinking of.

They need to decide where they draw the line and also what they would do if they lost their student group status. Is there a local church, for example, that they could use as a venue for bringing in speakers if they could not bring them to campus? Where would they meet?

It's important to get one's spine firmly stiffened when one sees these things coming. I suspect that all too many student groups just sign off and "hope it never happens," where "it" refers to the use of their group name as a platform for ideas and behaviors they think are wrong. This head-in-the-sand approach is a bad idea. Decide now that you will stand, and then stand.

And, yes, that should include not having leaders who are openly and actively homosexual and/or who hold and teach that homosexual activity is just fine. If you've already compromised on that one and signed a statement that you don't "discriminate" on that basis, think again next year. The temptation will be to sign whatever it takes to keep your ministry going, but that is not a good idea. And, as Warren's experience shows, if you don't draw a line in the sand, they certainly will. Eventually, if you have any principles at all, they will get to something you aren't willing to compromise on, so be ready.

Comments (39)

Eventually, if you have any principles at all, they will get to something you aren't willing to compromise on, so be ready.

To do otherwise is to pretend the Enemy doesn't know precisely where to stick the dagger.

Right, nobody should be assuming this is anything other than deliberate. It's entirely deliberate.

Now this is all an issue with a Christian group trying to mix it up with a secular institution.

Eventually, one has to think that the pink nazis are going to try to extend their reach to the Christian universities and colleges. Easy mark: 501(c)(3) status, going after their contributions as deductible. There are already signs that this is in the works, it's just a matter of time. It will be incredibly hard for most religious colleges to operate without donations, and it will be nearly impossible to keep the level of donations they are used to receiving if the deduction goes away. (Pinks will at the same time target the deductions to churches that speak out against gay marriage, so churches will feel the pinch as well.) We need to begin now to steel ourselves to churches and schools getting our donations even when we don't get to deduct for it.

On the good side, if schools (the few that are left, that is) are cut off from all public funds of every sort, they will cease to have a reason to kow-tow to the liberal mantra just for a few crumbs, so they will be more openly and more fully Christian. (Well, the ones who don't like sucking up just for the heck of it.)

I don't know why, but I hadn't fully realized that Christian colleges and universities do have 501c3 status. For some reason I thought of that as other organizations or charities.

But come to think of it the Bob Jones precedent concerning race makes it pretty clear that that is a weapon on the arsenal. And the homosexual activists do make an equation to race.

Lydia wrote:

I'm a little surprised myself that Vanderbilt took matters in this totally anti-creedal direction...I would have expected instead that Vanderbilt and other secular colleges would permit a requirement that the leaders of student groups believe in the resurrection or the Trinity but that they would require the groups to state explicitly that they would make no restrictions whatsoever on the sexual behavior of their student group leaders...Beyond that, yeah, you could require that they believe in the Trinity, because that belief would have been safely marginalized to a metaphysical realm with no behavioral consequences...

In other words, you thought that the policy was chosen by the leftist humans, with only the vague and general approval of the demonic principalities. So you really do have some of the same impulses as Ms. Warren; as aware of them as you are, you, too, are surprised by the evil of the demons.

In fact, the positions of the left have been chosen by the demons all along. Only, baby steps were required in the past because of the implicit Christian elements of culture inculcated into every Western human's childhood training, and into every political and educational institution.

Since the deterioration of the Christian elements is so far along by now, the demons can take giant steps. We're only a few paces away from criminalizing Christianity, and a few more from the murder of Christians in the public square. And, of course, intellectual consistency has never been necessary to fool leftists.

The positions of the right are also chosen by demons, frequently. Get used to the idea that some political elements whose banality and idiocy we've ignored because they're mostly on the right side of things are going to embrace the raging anti-Christianity of the left. In the end, you will not be able to tell them apart.

We really are going to have to stand up for the Kingdom of God, or not to stand at all. That's always been the object of the exercise. It's just getting clearer now.

Lydia, did you miss this story when it first broke a couple of years back? Vanderbilt went full-bore Henry VIII, Act of Supremacy and dissolution of the monasteries, on its student groups. The Oath of Nondiscrimination they've taken to making student-group organizers sign is a study in self-parody.


And as Mrs. Warren describes in her comments excerpted on Rod Dreher's site, it wasn't just about elections (in large part because of the requirement that everyone sign the pledge, or oath, or what have you). The Catholic group got booted even though its leadership is not democratically chosen.

The Catholics were fortunate: the Nashville cathedral is practically on Vanderbilt's campus, and they have their own diocesan-owned building just across the street. I don't know how these other groups get by, or what options are left for Protestants on campus.

Incidentally, I think Vanderbilt is full of it telling the disbanded groups they can't use the university's name. Unless they've updated their registration, Vanderbilt's trademark doesn't extend to social clubs or religious organizations. The Catholic student group voted to keep the "Vanderbilt" name, but the chaplain axed the proposal.

Mr. Weingart, surely you are not alleging that Lydia McGrew has fallen prey to "the same impulses as Ms. Warren," simply because the former has declined to ascribe Vandy's policy to direct demonic influence?

Speaking for myself, I suspect demonic influence has indeed played a role in the rise of the modern Left; certainly anyone familiar with the wickedness at the heart of the pro-abortion faction can have little doubt of that; but it is a bit of a stretch to take this opportunity to admonish Lydia for being "surprised by the evil of demons."

That said, I think we can all agree that "We really are going to have to stand up for the Kingdom of God, or not to stand at all."

Paul Cella wrote:

Mr. Weingart, surely you are not alleging that Lydia McGrew has fallen prey to "the same impulses as Ms. Warren," simply because the former has declined to ascribe Vandy's policy to direct demonic influence?

Mr. Cella, yes, indirectly.

The impulse is the one that says "The object of my analysis is, at his core, human and generally consistent, at least in his own view. Surely he will not resort to X," X being an evil so vile and so inconsistent with the human's stated principles as to render the thought unthinkable that he would go there. They're both being kind; it's a good impulse. Ms. McGrew's line of incredulity is a lot farther along the continuum of decline than is Ms. Warren's (Ms. Warren being pretty clueless,) but it's the same continuum and the same sort of line.

Ms. McGrew expected a policy from the Vanderbilt administration that directly served the human desire that's being protected in these actions--namely, the license to [insert your favorite, vulgar synonym for sexual intercourse here--boff, diddle, whatever] whomever one likes, whenever one likes, and not have to pay any consequences. And if the policy were genuinely driven by the humans, that would be the object of the policy.

But the human desire is not driving the policy. Lust was just the bait offered by the demons to get their humans trotting along this path. Now that culture is hurtling downhill at a gallop, the policies chosen will more and more reflect the true aims of the demons, with the human objects left in the ditch.

In fact, I would not be the least bit surprised if the human objects get lost utterly--and a few of the dupes actually notice. Demons are clever strategists, but they tend to cast off their dupes pretty indifferently as soon as they become unnecessary. They hate the dupes almost as much as they hate us.

Nothing here is to be taken as disagreement with Ms. McGrew. She's spot on. It's just, none of us actually expect the evil of the demons. That's part of what makes us human; it's an artifact of the image of God. Love believes all things, and hopes all things...

Titus, I did hear about it. It just takes me a while to write about things. Sometimes I never get around to writing about things at all. In this case, the Warren article is new and shows an interesting perspective on it--that of a progressive Christian.

I don't really like this policy, but Vanderbilt is a private university. I don't think that you should be too worried about it deciding how student organizations will be constructed given that many religious colleges couldn't exist in their current form without far more stringent restrictions on student behavior. This girl and her group can meet "unofficially" off campus or on campus and stop worrying about this. They're over 18, they're adults. They don't need a professor to hold their hand during their meetings.


For the record I do think that private universities should ban student groups that are opposed to homosexuality. Don't pursue a silly policy like this, just stamp them out period.

Warren says outright that the school can make its rules. She just disagrees with the rules. But let me add that Vanderbilt accepts loads of federal money. Such acceptance has heretofore frequently been interpreted to subject the school in question to various constitutional limitations on the extent to which they can engage in content discrimination. Whether I agree with those precedents or not, the precedents exist and could well apply in this case. Unless Vandy wants to go Hillsdale and give up all federal money, including student loans. At which point I will organize a group to go to Nashville and watch the aerial pig display.

Ha! Only thing less likely than the aerial pig display is Vandy winning the SEC in football.

If they don't apply to religious colleges that control behavior much more strictly what makes you think they apply here? Which cases are you talking about? As far as I know private universities do not have to remain content neutral. I'm fairly sure that you are just wrong about this, but maybe I'm not familiar with the relevant caselaw. Hillsdale stopped accepting federal aid money because it did not wish to record the race of its students, or so I understand.

Dunsany,

Here is FIRE on viewpoint discrimination and student fees at state institutions.

http://www.thefire.org/pdfs/student-fees-3.pdf

FIRE explains in the following link that precedents directly related to viewpoint discrimination often do not _directly_ raise constitutional issues at private colleges:

http://www.thefire.org/fire-guides/fires-guide-to-student-fees-funding-and-legal-equality-on-campus/fires-guide-to-student-fees-funding-and-legal-equality-on-campus-full-text/#Contents6

However, FIRE also points out that the concept of viewpoint discrimination can still apply when a university has published policies alleging that they value diversity of opinion, etc., etc. I'm sure that it can be established that Vanderbilt does have such language, in which case breach of contract, etc., comes into play where mandatory student fees are assessed.

Moreover, we have an interesting case where pro-life protesters sued Notre Dame (!) for viewpoint discrimination because of the nature of the police powers of those who ejected them from the campus:

https://www.osv.com/TodaysIssues/BioethicsandScience/Article/TabId/693/ArtMID/13736/ArticleID/6769/New-chapter-in-Notre-Dame-controversy.aspx

As far as I know, the fact that Notre Dame is a private college was not legally deemed to mean that the concept of viewpoint discrimination did not apply to this transaction. If college groups were evicted from private colleges by campus police who had similar police powers to the campus police at Notre Dame, then a similar argument could be made.

So, to fill that out, I had wrongly assumed from the knowledge I did have of the Notre Dame case that "viewpoint discrimination" (which I knew had also been used concerning campus groups and student fees) was being applied to Notre Dame because they receive federal money, but in fact it was on a different rationale. (Namely, the nature of their campus police.)

However, FIRE has other arguments concerning mandatory student fees and "viewpoint discrimination" among student groups for private colleges, as noted.

For the record I do think that private universities should ban student groups that are opposed to homosexuality. Don't pursue a silly policy like this, just stamp them out period.

Dunsany must be one of those demons Phil was talking about.

Dunsany must be one of those demons Phil was talking about.

Well, it's useful in that it confirms what we've already known -- higher-learning institutions aren't about higher learning at all. They're progressivist-propaganda factories.

Dunsany must be one of those demons Phil was talking about.

Well, it's useful in that it confirms what we've already known -- higher-learning institutions aren't about higher learning at all. They're progressivist-propaganda factories.

Back when Vanderbilt was contemplating instituting campus speech codes, I remember saying that if they wanted to do that kind of thing they should just admit that they were trying to create a leftist ghetto and therefore had nothing to boast about in the way of being a true university for the exchange of ideas as over some small, fundamentalist college. The same point, obviously, applies here.

Indeed. And Dunsany's candor in declaring that it is the principle of inquisition that motivates -- that worship of arbitrary power to "stamp out" dissent from the regnant orthodoxy -- helpfully illustrates the falsity of leftist belief in free expression and respect for dissent.

One legal oddity I have noticed elsewhere, not at Vanderbilt: Membership has to be open to all, and it is expressly stated that this is required by local ordinance. So the entire silly grocery list, including religion, marital status, and sexual orientation, has to be mentioned. I think "weight" may even be in there, of all things. However, the requirements for leaders evidently can be much more strict. So, e.g., one group says that leaders must not engage in conduct that impairs their Christian witness.

How can a local non-discrimination ordinance require free-for-all membership in a college student organization but not free-for-all leadership? If the one is discrimination why isn't the other? I almost hate to ask, for fear someone will try to use local (or state) non-discrimination ordinances to require all student clubs at all colleges located anywhere that such ordinances exist to adopt Vanderbilt's policy. Which is silly, because the ordinances refer to employment and public accommodations. Being either an officer or a member of a student organization at a college is neither employment nor public accommodations. So actually, such ordinances shouldn't be used by the colleges to justify free-for-all membership requirements either.

Scott, some Christian universities and colleges require *professors* to agree with statements of faith. Does that mean they don't believe in higher education or academic inquiry? Think carefully about your answer.


I don't buy the argument that refusing to countenance certain ideas within the private sphere at the institutional level is such a big problem. I doubt anyone would feel sorry for the groups involved if we were dealing with Neo-Nazis or whatever.

Dunsany, you have no sense of perspective. We're talking about (in the main post) a private university that is so postmodern that they literally won't allow student clubs (you savvy clubs?) that require their leaders, but not their members, to believe in the resurrection of Jesus, even if they are self-consciously Christian student clubs! That's absurd. The whole point of student clubs is to represent various strains of thought, traditions, interests. To rule out student clubs that are distinctively Christian is ruling out student clubs that represent an extremely important aspect of 2000 years of Western history. To claim at that point to be committed to knowledge, inquiry, diversity, etc., is simply laughable.

It would be a little more obvious what is going on here if they just refused to allow student clubs that even _claim_ to be Christian. But that would be even more obviously discriminatory, and its incompatibility with anything remotely like diversity of ideas would be displayed in neon letters a mile high. So this is neon letter a half-mile high. "You can have a Christian student organization. It just has to be so completely undefined that its entire leadership can be composed of atheists. It has to be so postmodern that the name means nothing." Yeah, that has a _lot_ to do with inquiry, thought, knowledge, diversity, blah, blah.

In my limited experience with the liberal thought police, they genuinely don't even notice when their attempts at enforcing diversity runs roughshod over diverse thoughts. When you carefully and without anger or attack point it out to them, you get 2 responses, depending on the character of the person: one is mild discomfort that they were being so insensitive as to oppress a point of view (yours), and then they take steps to undo their oppression (maybe not very good steps, but they take a shot at it). The other is a bare instant of something akin to horror that they might have been guilty of undiversity, and then a complete rebound into re-defining and re-characterizing diversity so as to avoid having to admit that oppressing Christianity is against diversity. Usually of a form like "we only oppress people who won't bow down and worship diversity by tolerating all points of view."

I agree that the clubs rule is stupid, remember? I said that they should simply ban anti-gay organizations entirely.

I said that they should simply ban anti-gay organizations entirely.

Yeah, well, that presumably applies to clubs. Look, I even think that a vegetarian club could add something to the atmosphere of a college, even though (quite understandably) it would not allow a meat eater to be the President. Or a pacifist club that would require that its leaders be pacifists. And I am neither a vegetarian nor a pacifist (needless to say.)

Yes, just ban any club that discriminates against gays. That doesn't mean that clubs wouldn't be able to restrict membership in other ways. Sort of like how under current US law a business that is classified as a public accommodation can't refuse to serve blacks but can refuse to serve someone not wearing shoes.

Which just shows that you are so narrow-minded yourself that you have zero understanding of the value even of associations such as clubs (which are not public accommodations, even) that have a traditional sexual ethos as part of their defining raison d'etre. You apparently think there could be some value to clubs that have opposition to meat-eating or war as part of their raison d'etre. Just not associations that have traditional sexual purity as part of their raison d'etre.

Presumably your rule would exclude even clubs that exclude heterosexual married people--perhaps a college club restricted to those considering admission to religious orders that require a vow of celibacy. Such an organization would exclude sexually active homosexuals as well as sexually active heterosexuals.

All of which means that you have no appreciation for the representation *even in relatively small student clubs*, associations of like-minded individuals, of the entire Christian tradition (among others).

Which means that you are ill-qualified to decide what makes a university a place of rich and interesting intellectual understanding and interaction.

At some point intellectual debate has to take a backseat to the lived experiences of students. Do I think Jewish students should have to deal with Neo-Nazis organizations that deny the holocaust? Nope. What about black students and the KKK? Not a chance. There may be some intellectual value to allowing such groups to exist on a campus, but there is a much greater value in sending the message that opposition to to gays, blacks, and other marginalized minority groups is unacceptable. It is true that I have no use for traditional forms of Christianity (indeed, I despise them) but my support of such policies is primarily motivated by my desire to protect LGBT individuals and end their social marginalization.

Because organizations that require either their membership or even just their group leaders to refrain from homosexual acts are obviously groups of thugs or nuts, equivalent to the KKK or neo-Nazis, that cannot possibly provide sufficient educational or intellectual value from their activities to offset the danger and harm they present to homosexual students on campus./sarc

Did it ever even occur to you, Dunsany, that plausibly _all_ of the activities of such Christian groups concern homosexual acts only indirectly at most? E.g. Bringing a speaker to campus to talk about, say, the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus, or sponsoring a debate between an atheist and a Christian over the truth of Christianity.

What about an organization that said they don't hate blacks, but refused to allow them serve as leaders because of some perceived inferiority? The Mormon church was like that until fairly recently, for whatever that's worth.


>Did it ever even occur to you, Dunsany, that plausibly _all_ of the activities of such Christian groups concern homosexual acts only indirectly at most

Of course, but the important thing is the message being sent. Civil society needs to send the message that opposition to LGBT people is unacceptable and should not be tolerated. If we tolerate anti-LGBT messages in a way that we don't tolerate racist messages then we will never be able to win this battle on a societal level.

What about an organization that said they don't hate blacks, but refused to allow them serve as leaders because of some perceived inferiority?

For that matter, I can imagine a black student group that allowed only black group leaders. A Black Student Caucus or something is after all a student group devoted to a particular racial identity. Or a Thai student group for homesick Thai students that doesn't allow Caucasian American leaders. It's quite simple to imagine student groups that have particular ethnic identities. Sometimes those ethnic identities might be tied up with something truly negative and unsavory (for that matter, there's plenty of black racism against whites in this world). Sometimes the ethnic identity will be completely harmless and positive. But you don't even seem to understand the general nature of focused student clubs. For example, a student club for fitness nuts does little or nothing to contribute to society's negative views of people who are fat. The idea that a student club with a particular ethnic identity has the same societal effect as not serving blacks in a restaurant is just weird and hyperbolic. All the more so when we are talking about a student club that has a Christian identity that includes, as merely one of a gazillion other things that are part of the worldview, a prohibition on group leaders who are engaging in and/or promoting the legitimacy of homosexual sex acts.

As I said before, you have absolutely no sense of perspective. That's true at multiple levels.

It is true that I have no use for traditional forms of Christianity (indeed, I despise them) but my support of such policies is primarily motivated by my desire to protect LGBT individuals and end their social marginalization.

Dunsany, I am not sure why you have a particular desire to end THEIR marginalization and don't want to extend that to OTHER groups that are, or may be, marginalized. Dwarves are marginalized, are you equally motivated by a desire to protect dwarves and end their social marginalization? What about albinos? Or Flat-Earthers? How about Christian homosexuals: would you support a club for Christian homosexuals, and would you be equally interested in ending their social marginalization?

I am just trying to understand your position here. Is it one that says LGTB people deserve more help than other groups? Or that they deserve the same help as other groups? Is it one that says some points of view are considered evil by many people and it is fine for society to suppress such points of view?

Aaaaand, a state university system has apparently just done the very same thing Vanderbilt did: You can't require people to have Christian beliefs (any creedal beliefs at all) in order to lead your Christian group.

https://www.mnnonline.org/news/opposition-christians-heading-back-school-matters/

Now we're cookin' with gas. I don't want to hear any more baloney sausage about how this is just a private college, because it isn't. I would be very interested to hear what FIRE's take is on the legal situation here concerning viewpoint discrimination. It is blatant discrimination against groups that actually hold to a particular religious viewpoint (any particular viewpoint) as opposed to a kind of religious relativism.

"Rosenberger and Southworth establish the principle that
a state university or college must distribute funds collected
by mandatory student fees in a viewpoint neutral
manner. State universities and colleges violate the right
of free expression guaranteed by the First Amendment if
they deny funding to a group because of the viewpoint it
advocates, or if they require students to pay into a system
whose official policies prohibit religious or political groups from receiving school funding." pp. 10-11

"In my limited experience with the liberal thought police, they genuinely don't even notice when their attempts at enforcing diversity runs roughshod over diverse thoughts."

It wasn't always this way with the Left, but this approach to "tolerance" has been attached to them like a virus since the 60's -- what was once a bug has become a feature, and thus is hardly noticed by them, if at all.

"we only oppress people who won't bow down and worship diversity by tolerating all points of view."

Right: the only thing we won't tolerate is intolerance. Meant to be profound, it's just vacuous and incoherent, because of course they are the ones who get to define intolerance. It's like that sign you see in pubs:

Rule #1: Bartender is always right.
Rule #2: If bartender is wrong, see rule #1.


Lydia wrote:

"As I said before, you have absolutely no sense of perspective. That's true at multiple levels."


Tony wrote:

"Dunsany, I am not sure why you have a particular desire to end THEIR marginalization and don't want to extend that to OTHER groups that are, or may be, marginalized. Dwarves are marginalized, are you equally motivated by a desire to protect dwarves and end their social marginalization? What about albinos? Or Flat-Earthers? How about Christian homosexuals: would you support a club for Christian homosexuals, and would you be equally interested in ending their social marginalization?

I am just trying to understand your position here. Is it one that says LGTB people deserve more help than other groups? Or that they deserve the same help as other groups? Is it one that says some points of view are considered evil by many people and it is fine for society to suppress such points of view?"

Lydia and Tony: remember, you are dealing with a poster (Dunsany) who has a single-issue focus.

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