Human Rights Campaign Calls on Christian Colleges to Repent of
Their Christianity
The activist group wants to encourage intimidation of schools that
follow religious teaching.
On Friday, the nation’s largest gay-rights organization, the Human
Rights Campaign (HRC), released a chilling report that investigates a
“disturbing trend” of religious colleges’ taking legal measures to
exercise their religious liberty, using waivers available to them under
Title IX. A summary of the report can be found here.
Titled “Hidden Discrimination: Title IX Religious Exemptions Putting
LGBT Students at Risk,” the report looks at 56 colleges that have sought
such exemptions. According to the report, “Since 2013, 33 have received
exemptions from protections that relate to gender identity, and 23 have
received exemptions relating to sexual orientation.”
# In the eyes of HRC, the constitutional rights of a religious school to
remain faithful to its doctrinal views on sexuality and sexual
complementarity should be subjugated to the expressive and sexual
identity of prospective students. In their view, moral condemnation of
homosexuality or transgender identity is tantamount to discrimination,
and therefore, Christian schools should not be treated so tolerantly
under federal law.
With the wind at its back, however, HRC is capitalizing on legal and
cultural shifts in believing it can single out and intimidate those
Christian schools, which, SURPRISE . . . believe and act according to
the Christian tradition.
RELATED: The Left’s Attacks on Religious Liberty Could Break America
As is the custom of confessionally Christian schools, most have
student-conduct guidelines that prohibit homosexual practice or that do
not validate the ideological construct of transgender theory. This
shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone familiar with Christianity, which
views the complementarity of the sexes as a divine gift and
homosexuality as a sinful deviation from God’s plan for human sexuality.
#The report issues three policy recommendations, calling on:
the Department of Education to require schools to publish comprehensive
information about the scope of the exemption they received and the way
Title IX still protects students;
the Department of Education to regularly report which educational
institutions have been granted Title IX religious exemptions and the
scope of those exemptions, and to ensure that the information is
provided on the individual schools’ landing page as part of College
Navigator; and
Congress to amend the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights
(OCR) governing statute to require OCR to annually report the number of
Title IX exemptions that were requested, granted, and denied
.
#
In effect, HRC wants the Department of Education to publicly list these
unsanctioned dissenters, require these institutions to confess their
sins publicly, and to be held accountable for any sins committed.
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There’s also this gem: “While the Department of Education has little
discretion to deny these requests for exemptions, religiously controlled
educational institutions should not be exempt from full transparency.”
In effect, HRC knows that it cannot deny religious colleges the rights
to such waivers, but, in their thinking, who needs a law when you have
unelected administrative bureaucracies that can unlawfully intrude and
intimidate those with religious views that are found unacceptable?
#RELATED: American Jacobins: Sexual Revolutionaries Prepare the
Battlespace for a De-Christianized America
The full report includes the private correspondence between the schools
and the federal government obtained through open-record requests. The
nature of the investigation comes across as manufacturing a hit list of
offending schools.
What are we to make of this?
First, HRC does not call for an outright end to such exemptions. Surely
HRC’s own political advisers know that a call to end such exemptions
would be far too radical. Furthermore, such action would be
legislatively impossible. But that leads to the next point.
The long-term goal of the efforts that HRC is engaged in is the
total capitulation and redefinition of biblical, orthodox, and historic
Christianity.
Secondly, HRC is strategically incremental. While calling for the end to
such exemptions is too radical at present, the purpose of this report
is to single out, stigmatize, and intimidate religious schools that
remain heretical to the orthodoxy of the Sexual Revolution.
#The
long-term effect of reports like this is clear: “We’re coming for you.
Reverse course, or we’ll eventually bring you to heel through the force
of law.” Give it time, because I don’t believe HRC is magnanimous enough
to leave the issue alone. In the long term, HRC is seeking to put
Christian colleges on the opposite side of federal law.
Third, keep in mind that the waivers sought by these schools are
entirely legal. A school seeking to preserve its Christian identity is
entitled, under federal law, to take measures that help preserve its
identity.
Fourth, in a post-Obergefell world, the report indicates the next front
of the culture war: Religious liberty and the ability of religious
institutions to stay true to their confessional identity. Concerned
citizens should look upon this report with chilling awe. Within six
months of Obergefell, the nation’s leading gay-rights lobby is trying to
disrupt the relationship between religious colleges and the federal
government.
# RELATED: Cultural Conservatives Have Barely Begun to Fight
Fifth, let us remember that the long-term goal of the efforts that HRC
is engaged in is the total capitulation and redefinition of biblical,
orthodox, and historic Christianity. The glorification of homosexuality
conflicts with the teachings of orthodox Christianity.
Sixth, the politics of religious liberty are here, and real. The next
president will have immense power in the shaping the future of the
judiciary. And thus, conservative Christians will need a president who
will stem the tide of Christianity’s forced exit from public life.
These are serious times. HRC is pulling out all stops to ensure that all
dissenters are shown the exit. As my friend Erick Erickson likes to
say, “You will be made to care.” Indeed, we are.
— Andrew T. Walker serves as director of policy studies for the Ethics
and Religious Liberty Commission. You can find him on Twitter:
@andrewtwalk
D
Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/428771/christian-colleges-religious-freedom
Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/428771/christian-colleges-religious-freedom
