The Supremes: Rules religious Group Can't Bar Gays

The U.S. Supreme Court this morning said a Christian student group that sought both funding and recognition by the University of California’s Hastings College of Law cannot deny membership to gays and lesbians.

Hastings’ policy forbids official recognition of student groups that discriminate on the basis of religious views or sexual orientation. But the Christian Legal Society, which sought school funds, requires members to sign a statement of faith and rejects members who engage in “unrepentant participation in or advocacy of a sexually immoral lifestyle.”

According to the Associated Press:

The court on a 5-4 judgment upheld the lower court rulings saying the Christian group’s First Amendment rights of association, free speech and free exercise were not violated by the college’s decision.
”In requiring CLS — in common with all other student organizations — to choose between welcoming all students and forgoing the benefits of official recognition, we hold, Hastings did not transgress constitutional limitations,” said Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (picured), who wrote the 5-4 majority opinion for the court’s liberals and moderate Anthony Kennedy. ”CLS, it bears emphasis, seeks not parity with other organizations, but a preferential exemption from Hastings’ policy.”
Justice Samuel Alito wrote a strong dissent for the court’s conservatives, saying the opinion was ”a serious setback for freedom of expression in this country.”
”Our proudest boast of our free speech jurisprudence is that we protect the freedom of express ‘the thought that we hate,”’ Alito said. ”Today’s decision rests on a very different principle: no freedom of expression that offends prevailing standards of political correctness in our country’s institutions of higher learning.”