CLS v. Martinez

Today was an important day. Last night Senator Robert Byrde and Martin Ginsburg died. Justice John Paul Stevens also retired after serving on the Supreme Court for a sixth of its existence.

There was, however, some happy news from the Supreme Court today. Martin's wife, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, attending today's final session of the term to give her majority opinion on Christian Legal Society v. Martinez.

The Christian Legal Society was denied official recognition at Hastings College of Law, which is part of the University of California, because of their policy limiting membership and offices to good Christians. They had to affirm their belief in Christian values like forswearing "unrepentant participation in or advocacy of a sexually immoral lifestyle" [1]. Read: no homos. Justices Ginsburg, Stevens, Kennedy, Breyer, and Sotomayor concluded that Hastings was not violating the rights of Christian students when the college refused to recognize and give money to a group that discriminates against queers and non-christians.

I'm mentioning this for two reasons. First, CFI submitted an amicus brief in the case (see the brief and CFI's comment on the decision). The second reason is that all groups at Brown must include the following statement in their constitution:

Eligibility to [the group] is open to all full-time undergraduate members of the Brown community and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, age, national or ethnic origin, disability, status as a veteran, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, or sex. Majority Membership consists of full-time undergraduate students.

I pulled that quote right from our constitution. We, like every other group at Brown, are willing to accept members of all different beliefs and sexual orientations. We happily have attendees who are devout Christians and others that are unrepentant sodomites. It's good to see that groups in public institutions can be held to the same standard.