Not a Danger, But An Opportunity

Steve M. worries that the freakazoids could use the recent Supreme Court decision banning religious discrimination as a way to infiltrate and undermine liberal groups.

FEELING HARASSED, ABOUT TO HARASS?

In Christian Legal Society v. Martinez, the Supreme Court ruled that a Christian campus group recognized and funded by the University of California's Hastings College of the Law can't deny membership to those who don't subscribe to its tenets (notably on homosexuality) because that violates the schools "accept all comers" policy for group funding. Lou Engle, a prominent leader of the religious right, thinks that's going to lead to the Apocalypse for Christians:

SNIP

Seriously, if there's any real consequence to this, I think it might be an unintended one. At Townhall, Mike Adams (who teaches at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington) makes this "immodest proposal":

I can't stand atheists. And I plan to do something about them. Thankfully, the U.S. Supreme Court has given me a powerful tool to use in my war against the godless. Earlier this week, the Court ruled that a public university may require all student organizations to admit any student as a voting member or officer. The decision applies even to a student who is openly hostile to the group's fundamental beliefs.

So, when I get back to the secular university in August, I plan to round up the students I know who are most hostile to atheism. Then I'm going to get them to help me find atheist-haters willing to join atheist student groups across the South. I plan to use my young fundamentalist Christian warriors to undermine the mission of every group that disagrees with me on the existence of God.

... we will seek to destroy groups whose names are even remotely suspicious. If I see any words like "atheist," agnostic", or even "free-thinker" I will know they are a group of godless heathens. Then we'll move in for the kill....

Is he really going to do this? I dunno. But, wherever this ruling is held to apply, I could easily imagine James O'Keefe-style harassment, in which smirking pranksters wave copies of this decision and demand to become members of liberal, Democratic, Muslim, and atheist groups (videotaping themselves all the while). Like Adams, they'll want to destroy these groups, or at least make their activities difficult if not impossible.

Meanwhile, right-wing and Christian-right groups on campuses with policies of this kind will simply exempt themselves from school funding, turning instead to deep-pocketed conservative foundations, just like the right-wing campus press.

Eventually it's going to turn out that an "accept all comers" policy is more trouble than it's worth -- for liberal and non-Christian groups more than anyone else.

Uh, no. These "christian warriors" will clutch their pearls and run away in terror at the first hint of "blasphemy" from genuine atheists. Or a slow wink from one of teh gheys. Or a whispered "boom!" from a Muslim. And that's if they even bother to show up. Young freakazoids are above all things cowards. The freakazoids are all about fear: trying to hide their own by inducing it in others.

The purpose of the "take all comers" policy upheld by the Supreme Court is not to impose diversity; it's to chase off campus all those groups to whom diversity is unbearable.

And that's a goal well worth the minor effort of scaring the freakazoids back to their caves.

Cross-posted at They Gave Us A Republic ....