Christians Sue For The Right To Be Intolerant

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Christians Sue for Right Not to Tolerate Policies

Many codes intended to protect gays from harassment are illegal, Christians argue.

Atlanta, georgia — Ruth Malhotra went to court last month for the right to be intolerant.

Malhotra says her Christian faith compels her to speak out against homosexuality. But the Georgia Institute of Technology, where she's a senior, bans speech that puts down others because of their sexual orientation. Malhotra sees that as an unacceptable infringement on her right to religious expression. So she's demanding that Georgia Tech revoke its tolerance policy.

With her lawsuit, the 22-year-old student joins a growing campaign to force public schools, state colleges and private workplaces to eliminate policies protecting gays and lesbians from harassment. The religious right aims to overturn a broad range of common tolerance programs: diversity training that promotes acceptance of gays and lesbians, speech codes that ban harsh words against homosexuality, anti-discrimination policies that require college clubs to open their membership to all.

The Rev. Rick Scarborough, a leading evangelical, frames the movement as the civil rights struggle of the 21st century. "Christians," he said, "are going to have to take a stand for the right to be Christian."

In that spirit, the Christian Legal Society, an association of judges and lawyers, has formed a national group to challenge tolerance policies in federal court. Several nonprofit law firms — backed by major ministries such as Focus on the Family and Campus Crusade for Christ — already take on such cases for free.

The legal argument is straightforward: Policies intended to protect gays and lesbians from discrimination end up discriminating against conservative Christians. Evangelicals have been suspended for wearing anti-gay T-shirts to high school, fired for denouncing Gay Pride Month at work, reprimanded for refusing to attend diversity training. When they protest tolerance codes, they're labeled intolerant.

A recent survey by the Anti-Defamation League found that 64% of American adults — including 80% of evangelical Christians — agreed with the statement "Religion is under attack in this country."

"The message is, you're free to worship as you like, but don't you dare talk about it outside the four walls of your church," said Stephen Crampton, chief counsel for the American Family Assn. Center for Law and Policy, which represents Christians who feel harassed.

Critics dismiss such talk as a right-wing fundraising ploy. "They're trying to develop a persecution complex," said Jeremy Gunn, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief.

Others fear the banner of religious liberty could be used to justify all manner of harassment.

"What if a person felt their religious view was that African Americans shouldn't mingle with Caucasians, or that women shouldn't work?" asked Jon Davidson, legal director of the gay rights group Lambda Legal.

Christian activist Gregory S. Baylor responds to such criticism angrily. He says he supports policies that protect people from discrimination based on race and gender. But he draws a distinction that infuriates gay rights activists when he argues that sexual orientation is different — a lifestyle choice, not an inborn trait.

By equating homosexuality with race, Baylor said, tolerance policies put conservative evangelicals in the same category as racists. He predicts the government will one day revoke the tax-exempt status of churches that preach homosexuality is sinful or that refuse to hire gays and lesbians.

"Think how marginalized racists are," said Baylor, who directs the Christian Legal Society's Center for Law and Religious Freedom. "If we don't address this now, it will only get worse."

Christians are fighting back in a case involving Every Nation Campus Ministries at California State University. Student members of the ministry on the Long Beach and San Diego campuses say their mission is to model a virtuous lifestyle for their peers. They will not accept as members gays, lesbians or anyone who considers homosexuality "a natural part of God's created order."

Legal analysts agree that the ministry, as a private organization, has every right to exclude gays; the Supreme Court affirmed that principle in a case involving the Boy Scouts in 2000. At issue is whether the university must grant official recognition to a student group that discriminates.

The students say denying them recognition — and its attendant benefits, such as funding — violates their free-speech rights and discriminates against their conservative theology. Christian groups at public colleges in other states have sued using similar arguments. Several of those lawsuits were settled out of court, with the groups prevailing.

In California, however, the university may have a strong defense in court. The California Supreme Court recently ruled that the city of Berkeley was justified in denying subsidies to the Boy Scouts because of that group's exclusionary policies. Eddie L. Washington, the lawyer representing Cal State, argues the same standard should apply to the university.

"We're certainly not going to fund discrimination," Washington said.

As they step up their legal campaign, conservative Christians face uncertain prospects. The 1st Amendment guarantees Americans "free exercise" of religion. In practice, though, the ground rules shift depending on the situation.

In a 2004 case, for instance, an AT&T Broadband employee won the right to express his religious convictions by refusing to sign a pledge to "respect and value the differences among us." As long as the employee wasn't harassing co-workers, the company had to make accommodations for his faith, a federal judge in Colorado ruled.

That same year, however, a federal judge in Idaho ruled that Hewlett-Packard Co. was justified in firing an employee who posted Bible verses condemning homosexuality on his cubicle. The verses, clearly visible from the hall, harassed gay employees and made it difficult for the company to meet its goal of attracting a diverse workforce, the judge ruled.

In the public schools, an Ohio middle school student last year won the right to wear a T-shirt that proclaimed: "Homosexuality is a sin! Islam is a lie! Abortion is murder!" But a teen-ager in Kentucky lost in federal court when he tried to exempt himself from a school program on gay tolerance on the grounds that it violated his religious beliefs.

In their lawsuit against Georgia Tech, Malhotra and her co-plaintiff, a devout Jewish student named Orit Sklar, request unspecified damages. But they say their main goal is to force the university to be more tolerant of religious viewpoints. The lawsuit was filed by the Alliance Defense Fund, a nonprofit law firm that focuses on religious liberty cases.

Malhotra said she had been reprimanded by college deans several times in the last few years for expressing conservative religious and political views. When she protested a campus production of "The Vagina Monologues" with a display condemning feminism, the administration asked her to paint over part of it.

She caused another stir with a letter to the gay activists who organized an event known as Coming Out Week in the fall of 2004. Malhotra sent the letter on behalf of the Georgia Tech College Republicans, which she chairs; she said several members of the executive board helped write it.

The letter referred to the campus gay rights group Pride Alliance as a "sex club … that can't even manage to be tasteful." It went on to say that it was "ludicrous" for Georgia Tech to help fund the Pride Alliance.

The letter berated students who come out publicly as gay, saying they subject others on campus to "a constant barrage of homosexuality."

"If gays want to be tolerated, they should knock off the political propaganda," the letter said.

The student activist who received the letter, Felix Hu, described it as "rude, unfair, presumptuous" — and disturbing enough that Pride Alliance forwarded it to a college administrator. Soon after, Malhotra said, she was called in to a dean's office. Students can be expelled for intolerant speech, but she said she was only reprimanded.

Still, she said, the incident has left her afraid to speak freely. She's even reluctant to aggressively advertise the campus lectures she arranges on living by the Bible. "Whenever I've spoken out against a certain lifestyle, the first thing I'm told is 'You're being intolerant, you're being negative, you're creating a hostile campus environment,' " Malhotra said.

A Georgia Tech spokeswoman would not comment on the lawsuit or on Malhotra's disciplinary record, but she said the university encouraged students to debate freely, "as long as they're not promoting violence or harassing anyone."

The open question is what constitutes harassment, what's a sincere expression of faith — and what to do when they overlap.

"There really is confusion out there," said Charles C. Haynes, a senior scholar at the First Amendment Center, which is affiliated with Vanderbilt University. "Finding common ground sounds good. But the reality is, a lot of people on all sides have a stake in the fight."


FOR THE RECORD:
Religious expression: An article in Monday's Section A said Gregory S. Baylor of the Christian Legal Society viewed homosexuality as a lifestyle choice. In fact, he does not have a stance on that issue. As the article noted, he supports policies that protect people from discrimination based on race, gender and other inborn traits. He asserts that antidiscrimination policies regarding homosexuality are different because they protect people based on conduct. Baylor's organization seeks to exempt religious groups from those policies.

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Umm...She wants to be able to bash people at her college because that's her right to 'freedom of religious expression'?....I'm pretty sure that the 'separation of church and state' in the constitution would keep her from doing that at her school, even if she DID have the 'tolerance policy' revoked...


AND...I'm also pretty sure that other religions would 'be against HER religion' so, is she gonna have the 'tolerance to people of all religions' revoked, too?...If NOT, why not?...If so, then, wouldn't she be screwing herself?

She doesn't accept homosexuality....Some people don't accept Christianity.....Why should the Christian faith be the one to set the standards for everyone else?

Personally...I have nothing against Christians (my daughter is a Christian)...BUT...NO ONE has the right to say how everyone else can and cannot live, if they are not hurting anyone else...or forcing their beliefs on other people

This is exactly the sort of thing that causes many to look down on Christianity...

Doesn't the bible say "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone"....And..."Judge not lest ye be judged"...?

Aren't Christians supposed to read the bible?

[Posher778]

I'm against homosexuality as a whole, but I sure as hell am not against all homosexuals. That's all I have to add.

[The STE]

two-way street. She can say what she wants about homosexuality. As long as the speech doesn't spill over into action, whatever

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Originally posted by The STE
two-way street. She can say what she wants about homosexuality. As long as the speech doesn't spill over into action, whatever

And if what she wants to say is "The bible says that Homosexuals should be dragged out into a public street and stoned to death" (which it does, in Leviticus...Except that it doesn't say 'homosexuals', it says "If a man lay with a man as a man lay with a woman...etcetera)...That would seem a bit 'inciteful' and 'intolerant' to me...


AND...What about the separation of church and state?...Would she be permitted to say such a thing in a 'school setting' anyway?

AND...If she made her case against homosexuality WITHOUT citing biblical reference, what would her reason be?....."I just don't like it"...?:rolleyes:

[The STE]

did I not JUST say "as long as the speech doesn't carry over into action"? And who cares what setting it is? Is she making some sort of policy around her dislike of homosexuality? If so, then it's not just speech.

[bloodrayne]

Okay...Let me put it this way...

A person chooses to make a speech about something in order to:

A) Voice their opinion

B) Attempt to make a change in a situation

C) Educate


If her intention is to 'educate people' about how 'wrong' homosexuality is (according to her and/or the bible)...Shouldn't she have hold her speech in a place where people might be seeking this 'education'?...Perhaps, in a church or something?

If her intention is to change the fact that some people are homosexuals...Does she really think that anything she does or says will 'make people stop being gay?......Can ANYONE make a man who is attracted to men (which I think is kinda weird, and a little gross, but that's just MY personal opinion, I don't try force everyone to think the way I do) STOP being attracted to men?....Wouldn't that be the same a trying to make a man who is attracted to women stop being attracted to women?......If she really wants to speak out about (and try to change) deviant sexual practices that are WRONG, why not condemn child molesters and people who fuck animals...And leave the consenting adults the hell alone?

If her intention is simply to 'voice her opinion'...Why not give her speech to a roomful of people who share her opinion?...OR if it is her intention to spark a debate to discuss the opinions of others who might oppose her, why not give her speech to a roomful of gays/lesbians who will simply say "Who gives a fuck?" and let it go?......Or...How about sharing her opinion ANYWHERE that she hasn't specifically been told, "We don't allow that here, it is insulting, and incindiery...It is also against school policy".....Instead of making a LITERAL 'case' out of it?


I'm all for hearing peoples' opinions...and everyone has the right to share them...But NOT when you say "My opinion is right, yours is wrong, everyone should live the way I do"....That's bullshit...


One person's rights END where the other person's rights BEGIN....

[bloodrayne]

Originally posted by The STE
And who cares what setting it is?

My response was to her desire to speak out against homosexuality in her school, which has a sexual preference 'tolerance policy' that she's trying to do away with

[bloodrayne]

Am I even making any sense anymore?

[The STE]

no, but I'm a Talking Heads fan, so I'll let it pass