Article by Tyler O'Neil in "PJMedia":
On Friday, a federal court
ruled that officials at the University of Iowa must pay out of their own
pockets for discriminating against InterVarsity Christian Fellowship by
kicking them off campus, along with other religious student groups. The
university deregistered the religious groups after an openly gay man
claimed he was unjustly denied a leadership position in another
Christian organization that required leaders to follow traditional
Christian sexual morality. This morality may be unpopular, but
organizations should have the freedom of association to limit their
leadership to those who follow their precepts.
"We must have leaders who share our faith," Greg Jao, director of external relations at InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA, said in a statement.
"No group—religious or secular—could survive with leaders who reject
its values. We’re grateful the court has stopped the University’s
religious discrimination, and we look forward to continuing our ministry
on campus for years to come."
In the ruling,
Judge Stephanie M. Rose of the U.S. District Court for the Southern
District of Iowa, not only found that the university and its officials
violated InterVarsity's First Amendment rights to free speech, free
association, and the free exercise of religion but she also held
university officials personally liable. The officials must pay damages
to InterVarsity from their own personal accounts. In handing down the
ruling, Rose called the university's actions "ludicrous" and "incredibly
baffling."
The university
acted against InterVarsity and other religious groups after it
deregistered the student group Business Leaders in Christ (BLinC) for
its policy of restricting leadership to those who believed in Christian
teaching and adhered to Christian sexual morality. BLinC sued the
university, claiming the school could not treat BLinC differently from
other, non-religious groups.
A judge ordered the school to reregister BLinC, but the school responded by deregistering 37 other organizations, including
the Imam Mahdi Organization, the Japanese Students and Scholars Club,
the Latter-day Saint Student Association, the Sikh Awareness Club, and
Young Americans for Liberty.
In February, Rose ruled in favor of BLinC, granting a nominal $1 in damages. The damages will be a great deal larger in the InterVarsity case.
"It’s
rare for a federal judge to call out a public university for
‘ludicrous’ and ‘incredibly baffling’ violations of the First
Amendment," Daniel Blomberg, senior counsel at Becket, who represented
InterVarsity and BLinC, told Fox News. "But
it was necessary here. The court already told the University of Iowa to
stop picking on one Christian student group. The University responded
by doubling down and kicking out Christian, Muslim and Sikh groups. That
was obviously wrong. And it’s even more clearly wrong once you
consider, as the court did, that it was also unfair."
This ruling upholding InterVarsity's religious freedom and freedom of association follows the historic ruling in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission (2018),
in which the Supreme Court ruled that the Colorado commission had
engaged in unlawful religious discrimination against a Christian baker
who refused to craft a custom cake for a same-sex wedding. Government
officials had compared the baker's beliefs to the Nazis.
Also last week, a district court judge in Michigan granted a preliminary injunction
protecting a Catholic adoption agency from discriminatory state action.
That agency had refused to certify same-sex couples and single people
for adoption.
The LGBT
movement has become overzealous in efforts to prevent discrimination
against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people. These people
deserve equal rights, but they do not have the right to silence
dissenters or to force conservative religious believers to violate their
consciences.
Conservative
Christian organizations still have the right to restrict leadership to
people who believe their doctrines and follow their moral codes.
The well-documented animus against conservative Christians referred to as Christianophobia helps
explain the likely motivations behind these officials at the University
of Iowa. Rather than merely accepting that BLinC had the right to
choose its own members, the officials revoked the standing of dozens of
other groups. Now it seems the chickens will be coming home to roost.
