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Court: Christian group can't bar gays, get funding - Politics - msnbc.com
Seems like a reasonable decision to me. The first amendment protects your right to discriminate but it does not protect your right to receive public funding or recognition to enable your discrimination. (the Christian group in question excluded homosexuals)
5-4 decision, with the expected conservative/liberal split and Kennedy siding with the liberals on this one. That four supreme court justices think the first amendment protects your right to public funding of discrimination is fairly disturbing.
On the plus side, this gives some hope to the folks waiting on overturn of California's Prop 8, as it shows that Kennedy wont automatically side against homosexuality. Overturning Prop 8 is a much bigger decision, though, so how he ends up in the inevitable Supreme Court case remains to be seen.
WASHINGTON — An ideologically split Supreme Court ruled Monday that a law school can legally deny recognition to a Christian student group that won't let gays join, with one justice saying that the First Amendment does not require a public university to validate or support the group's "discriminatory practices."
The court turned away an appeal from the Christian Legal Society, which sued to get funding and recognition from the University of California's Hastings College of the Law. The CLS requires that voting members sign a statement of faith and regards "unrepentant participation in or advocacy of a sexually immoral lifestyle" as being inconsistent with that faith.
Seems like a reasonable decision to me. The first amendment protects your right to discriminate but it does not protect your right to receive public funding or recognition to enable your discrimination. (the Christian group in question excluded homosexuals)
5-4 decision, with the expected conservative/liberal split and Kennedy siding with the liberals on this one. That four supreme court justices think the first amendment protects your right to public funding of discrimination is fairly disturbing.
On the plus side, this gives some hope to the folks waiting on overturn of California's Prop 8, as it shows that Kennedy wont automatically side against homosexuality. Overturning Prop 8 is a much bigger decision, though, so how he ends up in the inevitable Supreme Court case remains to be seen.
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