On April 19, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Christian Legal Society v Martinez, 08-1371. This is not an election law case, but it is a case on freedom of association, and those cases impact on cases about political parties. UPDATE: here is a comprehensive AP story.
It is a tough issue because the club wants to be subsidized by the general student body (sinners and saints alike) but wants to also be able to exclude certain people based on their values.
I would have a bit more sympathy for their case if they wanted to discriminate and did not feel that sinners are good enough to pay their bills but not actually be memebers.
Also, I doubt that the current U.S. Supreme Court would use a case like this to help out ballot access and other expressive rights of third parties.
It doesn’t really matter what the US Supreme Court’s intent is. Anything the US Supreme Court says about freedom of association inevitably helps determine what lower courts do about political party rights cases.
Tough issue ??????
Not at all ………..
Clear as a bell!
They undermine their own argument by having no moral objection to taking funds from all students (sinner and saint alike) but then turning around and stating that their freedom of association is more important then the State and University civil rights laws or the freedom of those students whom they took their monies….
Their are some people who want to use the ‘freedom of association’ banner to invalidate important civil rights laws, and really do not care about the rights of political minorities.
The US Supreme Court had never struck down any state law or policy on freedom of association grounds until the 1950’s, when the Court protected the NAACP against hostile state governments. So, when the US Supreme Court first struck down a restrictive ballot access law, in 1968, it did so on partly depending on those earlier association cases. The freedom for groups to operate in this society is a very fundamental freedom. It should be appreciated just as much as freedom of speech and freedom of religion is appreciated.
Here’s post-argument analysis from SCOTUSblog:
http://www.scotusblog.com/2010/04/big-decision-on-an-uncertain-record/
SCOTUSblog also has links to MP3 files of arguments by counsel for CLS and for Hastings Outlaw, a student group that says it is interested in having access to all student organizations’ activities — but not counsel for the school itself.
It would seem to me that the issue is one where the ruling authority (the University) is using is internal policies or laws to descriminate against a religions institution. This would be in the same way as a Municpality uses City Code to discriminate aginst a church or religions group. The Municipallity applies them consistently but has an internal bias in the rule. Hence the University Club is note permited to meet in a fashion consistant with their beliefs.
A ZILLION DEAD / tortured bodies due to religion stuff for the last 6,000 plus years.
See for example the mass murders / torture between *religious* Catholics and *religious* Protestants in the Thirty Years War in central Europe 1618-1649 (causing some folks to leave Europe and go to North America to escape the EVIL).
1st Amdt —
NO Govt support of ANY religion — NO Pro stuff.
NO Govt attacking of any religion (at least the mental parts — sorry NO human sacrifices in any religion activity) — NO Con stuff.
Way too difficult for the party hack Supremes — who have been screwing up the religion part of the 1st Amdt for about 150 years.
to discriminate against a religious institution ………
Hey, hold the meetings off campus with out public funding!
I have no problem with, ‘freedom of association’ or the right to privacy. BTW, both are which are not expressly mentioned in the Constitution.
Yet, follow the logical — yet cruel — conclusions of saying that a group’s religious beliefs can exempt it from possibly any laws it may disagree with or at the very least any civil rights laws it dislikes?
Also, if students have a associative right not to associate with ‘avowed’ ‘homa-sex’yalls’ then dont students have an equal right not to fund a group with a policy that violates their beliefs?
Last, the 1968 ballot access case was actually pretty good. As was the 1950s era case. That was when the court seemed to care about voting rights and political choice and expression. They seem to have lost that since the 1970s.