By Kathleen Gilbert
WASHINGTON, D.C., June 29, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The U.S. Supreme Court's ruling against a campus Christian group that had been denied legal status by a California university for failing to include non-Christian members, has provoked a disparate response from conservative groups. While several leaders decried the decision as a massive blow to religious freedom, others asserted that the decision is not as far-reaching or damaging as it may first appear.
At the same time, the dissenting Supreme Court justices say that the ruling, though narrow, nonetheless sets bad precedent.
The case, Christian Legal Society v. Martinez, was brought before the court after the University of California's Hastings School of Law revoked official status from a Christian group. The group had refused to allow non-Christians or those engaging in a “sexually immoral lifestyle” to become voting members or leaders. In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court ruled that the university was within its rights to enforce a policy that required all groups on campus to admit members even if they did not agree with the group's viewpoints.
Several conservative groups say they consider the decision a major threat. These include the Family Research Council (FRC), which called the outcome “a massive defeat for religious freedom.”
FRC President Tony Perkins said the decision “throws student organizational mission statements out the door, as everyone at a state school with an 'all-comers' policy, regardless of belief, can now join any organization, even if they oppose that organization's purpose and mission.”
Perkins noted that the decision bodes ill for cases that pit religious freedom against claims of discrimination by homosexuals.
“The Court majority essentially held that it is acceptable to discriminate against private religious organizations that disagree with them on whether homosexuality is a constitutional right, and against religious groups that want to organize in universities according to the dictates of their faith,” he said.
The ruling is being widely interpreted by media and liberal commentators as a victory against Christian groups in favor of homosexual “rights.”
Yet other organizations appeared to disagree that the case would do much damage: the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), which helped defend the Christian group, said that the decision effectively upheld “an unusual university policy that forces student groups to allow outsiders who disagree with their beliefs to become leaders and voting members.”
Kim Colby, senior counsel at the CLS Center for Law & Religious Freedom, also said that the ruling would “have limited impact” due to the uniqueness of Hastings' policy. ADF Senior Legal Counsel Gregory S. Baylor added that the decision “doesn’t settle the core constitutional issue of whether nondiscrimination policies in general can force religious student groups to allow non-believers to lead their groups.”
Yet the opinion of the dissenting judges argues that the ruling, while narrow, nonetheless represents a turn for the worse by ignoring the true nature of Hastings' policy.
“Brushing aside inconvenient precedent, the Court arms public educational institutions with a handy weapon for suppressing the speech of unpopular groups—groups to which, as Hastings candidly puts it, these institutions ‘do not wish to … lend their name[s],’” wrote Justice Samuel Alito, who was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Antonin Scalia and Justice Clarence Thomas.
Alito pointed out that the court ignored the policy most pertinent to the case: the Nondiscrimination Policy that was invoked to deny the group official status for discriminating against “sexual orientation.” Instead, the majority opinion focused on the “accept-all-comers” policy that was only belatedly introduced to the case, and which no evidence indicates even existed before the dean's deposition in the case.
In any case, said Alito, the school's policy was not fundamentally reasonable. “There are religious groups that cannot in good conscience agree in their bylaws that they will admit persons who do not share their faith, and for these groups, the consequence of an accept-all-comers policy is marginalization,” stated the opinion.
“I do not think it is an exaggeration to say that today’s decision is a serious setback for freedom of expression in this country,” he wrote. “I can only hope that this decision will turn out to be an aberration.”