Post hosts town hall on religion & media Tuesday night

I would be able to make it, but I hope you will address why the Post Op-ed page on Friday ran a column by Newt Gingrich that left out the key fact of the same case you (David Waters) discuss in your On Faith post "Free Excercise of Religious Discrimination".

Gingrich claims only that the club in question required members to commit to Christian principles; Waters article points out that the club excluded gays and non-celibates. That's the key distinction that the case was about.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/15/AR2010041504664.html
Gingrich: "In 2004, administrators at the University of California's Hastings College of Law were outraged to learn that the campus's Christian Legal Society chapter required members to sign a statement affirming their Christian beliefs and committing to live by them."

http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/undergod/2010/04/free_exercise_of_religious_discrimination.html
Waters: "A public law school's denied legal recognition to a Christian student group because the group discriminates -- it bars non-Christians, gays and non-celibate students from serving as officers or voting members."

I hope they ask questions on the tax exampt law when thoes groups speak out on politial matters and pay no tax.

Well, WMarkW, don't faint, but I'm partly behind the Christian group on this matter, even if the legal ruling isn't about what it's purportedly about when Christian conservatives complain.

If a Christian club wants to start a 'no fornication' club, then, well, go ahead. Don't use hate speech to do it. Or ask a university with non-discrimination policies to endorse and fund singling out gay people, or claims that 'Christians' have to consider being gay 'against God and Nature.'

When it comes to actual *eligibility,* well, if that group wants to say 'No one who 'fornicates' can hold office here,' (which is the effect,) ..well, OK. That's up to the Christians at that school to decide. (But not to expect the university to endorse that view of Christianity over other ones, especially if it violates policies.)

Practically-speaking, the hate-speech against gays is pretty redundant: if no one can have sex without a marriage (of some kind, anyway: obviously the legal discrimination could be used as a dodge, but some Christian churches will religiously-sanctify gay unions) that's the same standard for everyone.

Yeah, I know that's not what they meant.

Actually, never mind.

Point is, universities can't and shouldn't endorse such discrimination. I thought these conservatives were all about not relying on government, anyway?

I think, myself, I'd like to ask why they still cover 'alternative religion' like some kind of 'novelty/freakshow' thing, after all this time and considering how many of us there are?

I tried tuning into this using the Watch it Online link, but there was no video; the audio sounded like a mike all the way across the room with faint voices barely audible over ambient sound; and the 15-second promo for batteries repeated every 30 seconds over-talking the show.