CLS v. Martinez

This is a link to a story PBS did on the case of CLS v. Martinez, which will be argued before the Supreme Court tomorrow.  It involves the Christian Legal Society chapter at UC Hastings (near San Fransisco), which had its student organization status revoked by the school because the group requires that voting members and officers be Christians who would affirm the Apostle’s Creed.  According to the school’s discrimination policy, this is religious discrimination, further exacerbated by the fact that officers in the group must affirm that sexual relationships are reserved for the marriage relationship of one man and one woman (applied more often where students are living with their boyfriend or girlfriend), a fact the school takes as sexual orientation discrimination.

The difficulty of the situation is that this policy means that student groups like College Republicans or PETA can exclude people who don’t agree with their message from being officers (because this is ideological discrimination), but religious groups cannot do so precisely because they are religious.

This is therefore a very important and very difficult case, and everyone involved in the case certainly covets your prayers going into the week.  We are certainly deeply blessed with more liberty in this country than many others enjoy, and Christ certainly won’t be denied from law campuses even if CLS loses this case.  However, I know many people who have gone through law school never knowing another Christian, and I can personally attest that Christian fellowship has been a sustaining energy for me in this process, and I fear that future law students could be constructively denied this opportunity.

On a lighter note, you will notice at least one familiar face in the video linked to above (even if only to notice how baldness is progressing against me), so I must admit to providing a link to this particular coverage of the case for partly selfish reasons.

Donald Roth