The New Discrimination--Freedom of Religion

Here we go again. The University of California’s Hastings College of Law has skewered itself on the horns of dilemma it never needed to have created or to have faced. The whole matter goes before the Supreme Court tomorrow.
It seems that Hastings College of Law has a rigid policy that no organization that uses school property, enrolls students or advertises its meetings on campus may discriminate on the grounds of religious or sexual orientation.
Which immediately spelled trouble for the local chapter of the Christian Legal Society—a reasonably innocent group (no militia members here)of future lawyers of the Christian persuasion who want to meet with fellow Christian law students.
Christianity—like Islam, Judaism, Hinduism and Buddhism—is by its nature exclusionary. Most Christian organizations expect members to believe that Christ is God, part of a divine trinity, that he died in place of men for their misbehaviors, and so forth.
Voting members and officers of the society are expected to adhere to these basic principles. One of the principles that most annoys Hastings is the Christian attitude about homosexuality. Like theft, cheating on one’s spouse or blasphemy it is considered unacceptable.
In fact, conservative Christians go so far as to agree with the majority of the American Psychological Association membership who held that homosexuality was a perverse form of personality disorder. This was their belief back in the early 1970s when a minority group of APA members rammed through the position that it was merely a life style choice.
So the Christian Legal Society, in the mind of Hastings College of Law, joins a select group of student organizations deemed unfit for future lawyers. It will not be allowed to use campus facilities for its meetings. (No one said, incidentally, that non-Christians could not attend; merely that they could not be voting members or officers.)
The Supreme Court must now decide (again—and again and again, no doubt) whether the position of the college violates the First Amendment or whether Christians are truly discriminatory when they limit membership in a Christian organization to Christians.
The First Amendment’s “freedom of religion” clause reads as follows: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; …”. That says two things.
One) Congress shall NOT establish a national state church (like the Episcopal Church in England, the Reformed Church in the Netherlands or the Presbyterian Church in Scotland)—especially not one that would SUPERCEDE the established STATE churches that existed in several of the states at the time the Bill of Rights was ratified.
In other words, all it PREVENTS is the creation of a federal government run/funded national denomination. It doesn’t even contemplate the new notion of keeping Christian groups off public college campuses because this might discriminate against non-Christians or atheists.
Two) In absolutely no way can CONGRESS pass any kind of law that would keep the Christian Legal Society from “the free exercise” of its religion—even if that keeps non-Christians from becoming voting members or officers.
Once again the Justices must put on their spectacles and see if they can still read the clear wording of that wonderful old 18th Century document, the Bill of Rights. They should remember that the entire basis of their legal and political power rests on their willingness/ability to interpret the Constitution and its amendments.
Why should Hastings College of Law be permitted to do what Congress itself is expressly forbidden to do? Will the court decide it has the clear power to ignore or overrule a fundamental principle of the American Democracy and its Constitution?
If the Court chooses to step beyond the protection that the Constitution provides them, then more Presidents may feel free to disregard their decisions—as Andrew Jackson did when he said, “John Marshall [chief justice] has made his law; let him enforce it.” They might take the defiance Obama has already shown more seriously. Future Chief Executives more do more than waggle a finger at them during a State of the Union Address.