20 December 2005
California State University 2, Christianity 0
For the second time in two weeks, Christianity is on the losing end of a decision made by officials from the California State University system. Some students from Cal State at San Bernardino have
been told that forming a Christian group is "not permissible" at the university because it restricts membership based on religious beliefs and sexual orientation.
Last week, an administrator from Cal State at Sacramento banned decorations pertaining to Christmas and the 4th of July, among other holidays, from her office because, she said, they represented "religious discrimination" and "ethnic insensitivity."
In the San Bernardino case, the Christian Student Association (CSA) proposed a constitution in order to be recognized by Cal State officials. In it, the CSA agreed to accept the school's demands about not discriminating on the basis of race, color, national origin, gender and physical disability, but rejected non-discrimination requirements regarding religious beliefs and sexual orientation.
The student group insisted that members "must be Christians who have professed their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ." It added that membership could be revoked "for misconduct or violation of the statement of faith," including "historical Christian heresy [and] engaging in sexual activity outside the bounds of marriage."
All students were invited to attend group meetings and events without being members, according to the constitution, but only members could vote on group policy.
But in an Oct. 3 memo to the CSA's Ryan Sorba, Cal State San Bernadino student affairs director Christine Hansen wrote that the student group "could not discriminate against potential members because of their status as a non-Christian or as a homosexual."
Hansen told Cybercast News Service that the university does recognize several religious clubs, including the Jewish group Hillel and "a couple other sort of non-denominational Christian groups besides the one that Mr. Sorba is trying to start." But she said Sorba's proposal violated university and state policies.
Hansen's memo to Sorba on Nov. 2 explained the violation of those policies and how her enforcement of the rules were "not a matter of my opinion ...
"[I]t's a matter of my responsibilities as the director to uphold Title V," Hansen wrote to Sorba, referring to the California law that requires the non-discrimination clause in student group constitutions.
Greg Lukianoff, the director of legal and public advocacy for the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), said the CSA had "the right to ensure that their members share their central beliefs." FIRE, a legal group that defends free speech on college campuses, is urging Cal State to recognize the group.
"The [United States] Constitution ensures that Muslim groups are free to be Muslim, Buddhist groups are free to be Buddhist, and Christian groups are free to be Christian," Lukianoff said, "even if the principles they express run counter to the official viewpoints of unconstitutional policies of state universities."
Last week, Patricia Sonntag, director of the Office of Services to Students with Disabilities for Cal State at Sacramento, sent an email to members of her staff pertaining to Christian-dominated holiday decorations from the office.
The memo named Christmas, Thanksgiving, Halloween, Valentine's Day, the 4th of July, St. Patrick's Day and Easter as the most offensive holidays, but Sonntag said those celebrations are "off the top of the list," implying that there would be others.
12:25 Posted in UNITED STATES | Permalink | Comments (1) | 
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The final nail in the coffin of the burial God and Christ. This is what the athiest and agnostics have been striving for, for years. Through various Organizations such as The Humanist Society, The E.R.A., the globalist New World Order, The New Age proponents and on and on and on I could go.Accept any concept of of a god you want, but deny the only True God and His only begotten Son Christ and the Word of God. My friends this is what you now see coming to pass. This is not a new plan;it is just the fruition of many many attempts by many many people who make up these Organizations.Satan has his people, and God has His and it seems Satan has a great advantage right now, even the T.V. EVANGELISTS are deluded into teaching false doctrines, doctrines of the Devil himself. Ah Satan is saying, I've won the Battle! But dear friends,rest assured, God and Christ are going to WIN THE WAR.Thus regardless of how many battles Satan has won.This new Gnosticism by the so called intellectuals????? is as old as The Gospel itself.People seem never to learn anything except, it be by the hard way. Our Nation has not stood and cannot stand for long without God as its undergirding.As long as people refuse to study Gods Word and rightly divide it for themselves,and quit depending on what are told by their preacher or evangelist, they are bound for destruction.When we vote God out of our Nation then calamity will come, even to those who perpetrated it.Even some of us older "cranks" may live to see this. May God have mercy on us and our Nation.
Posted by: Billy D.Wardlow | 11 January 2006
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