A story just appeared in the news that Rollins College in Florida voted to cut off funds for the Intervarsity Christian Fellowship for a discriminatory policy that it observes: Rollins College has determined that a Christian student organization is in violation of the school’s nondiscrimination policy because the group requires its leaders to be followers of Christ.
This strikes one as a Captain Obvious moment, as anyone with an ounce of common sense could understand the ICF’s reasoning. These stories show up every so often where a Christian group at some college or university is attacked for not wanting to admit members who don’t share Christian beliefs. Of course, nowhere in these discussions is why on Earth anyone who is not a Christian would have any interest in joining such a group, other than destroying the group’s purpose. Lawsuits to defend the groups get filed, but outside of the Conservasphere (Fox News, Drudge, various blogs, etc) these attacks get ignored in the media. Personally, I think that fighting the universities is exactly the wrong approach, as the schools are being allowed to define the battleground and small student groups are forced to defend themselves against their massive, deep pocketed attackers. I see a better way to counter them.
Give up. Agree to everything that the university demands and allow people of any view to join or become an officer in your group. Then stop attending your meetings, since the purpose of your group has been removed by intolerant leftists. OK, so far I know that this doesn’t sound too appealing. But now comes the fun part.
Find another group on campus and co-opt them in the same way that the university is insisting that you allow your group to be. Even better, make it some leftist group – any LGBT, feminist, or junior versions of NAACP or La Raza would be good. I’m guessing that these groups won’t be too receptive to the idea of admitting members that don’t share their vision, but that would be discriminatory. Or how about the beauty of a LGBT group whose officers are all devout Christians who begin mandating that every group meeting start with a prayer? The existing members are free to complain to the university, but standards are standards. If the university wants to stop such takeovers they will have to re-evaluate their own policies, or at least come clean about their own bigotry. As an added bonus, now instead of these larvae for various professional grievance groups wasting time looking for something to be angry about to justify their existence now they’re spending their energy defending their own positions – a win-win!
Actually, all of this sounds like a real waste of time and a pain in the neck to bother with. We could just all respect other people’s views and have an adult conversation, but if that were the case none of this would have started in the first place, now would it?
Cross posted from Brother Bob’s Blog
