Religion & American Law

The U.S. Supreme Court has officially refused to consider a request by Christian fraternity and sorority groups at San Diego State University to allow them to limit membership based on religious beliefs. The court case filed in 2005 said the plaintiffs, The Alpha Gamma Omega-Epsilon Chapter fraternity and the Alpha Delta Chi-Delta Chapter sorority which required members to be Christians and to refrain from sex outside marriage, including same-sex relationships. This requirement of the Christian fraternity violated the school’s non-discrimination policy, which made the groups ineligible for promoting themselves on university webpage, student funding, using school name in any place, reserving office or meeting space. The Federal Appeals court ruled in the case that San Diego state university can deny funding and recognition to students groups that discriminate on the basis of religion and sexual orientation and did not violate the US constitution.

The Supreme Court’s decision to stay out of the case was due to the Christian Legal Society vs. Martinez 2010 decision that said a law school can deny recognition to a Christian student group that wouldn't let gays join. The Supreme Court ruled then that University of California's Hastings College of the Law could refuse to recognize campus groups that excluded people due to religious belief or sexual orientation and the school’s Non-discrimination policy did not violate the student groups First Amendment rights.

San Diego State University was happy with the Supreme Court’s decision because they didn’t want any kind of discrimination on the college campus.

Religious discrimination is very common in this country and it’s solely because we are a big melting pot in my opinion. I see the issue here as one religion (Christianity) wanting to show superiority over the other religions. It’s the West vs. The Rest. Christians have the need to separate themselves from the pack, why do they have that need? What makes Christians more superior from other men or women of faith? 

I totally agree with Federal Appeals court’s decision that discrimination on the basis of religion and sexual orientation does the not violate the US constitution and the schools have the full right to enforce their non-discriminatory policy. Wanting religious freedom is a right, but wanting religious discrimination is a violation in my opinion. Supreme Court also made a good choice by not adopting a very similar case like Christian legal society vs. Martinez in which they clearly ruled that the non-discriminatory policy did not violate student group’s first amendment rights of association, free speech, and free exercise. We may be a Christian nation, like John Fea would argue but that does not give Christians the right to discriminate other religions.