Elijah Haahr
Missouri Republicans have decided that College Religious groups face a real problem, they can't have their cake and eat it too. In a proposal put to the floor, Kurt Schaefer put forward legislation that addresses the real problem facing Missouri religious groups: They do not have a right to both express their homophobia AND receive public funding for it. Schaefer's Legislation, which mirrors house Republican Elijah Haahr's work makes will go to the Missouri floor this year as a start of new Republican handiwork in the state capital.
Legislation, introduced as HB-104 moves to correct this oversight.
173.1560.
1. No public institution of higher learning shall take any action or
2 enforce any policy that denies a religious student association any benefit available to any
3 other student association, or discriminate against a religious student association with
4 respect to such benefit, based on that association’s requirement that its leaders or members
5 adhere to the association’s sincerely held religious beliefs, comply with the association’s
6 sincere religious observance requirements, comply with the association’s sincere religious
7 standards of conduct, or be committed to furthering the association’s religious missions as
8 such beliefs, requirements, standards, or missions are defined by the association or religion
9 upon which the association is based.
To make this clear: If your group discriminates against people, and your university hands out money or support to other clubs, they cannot refuse to hand out money or support to you because you, in fact, discriminate. Got that? You are free to discriminate and the university must be required to provide you monetary or other support for it, because they cannot discriminate.
Much of this stems back to interest of schools and universities over the last few years to "de-list" or stop officially recognizing with university support and access to university free advertising and/or university promotion through materials to students.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
California State University, which has 23 campuses, is “de-recognizing” local chapters of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, an evangelical Christian group with 860 chapters in the United States. The university system says InterVarsity’s leadership policy conflicts with its state-mandated nondiscrimination policy requiring membership and leadership in all official student groups be open to all.
“For an organization to be recognized, they must sign a general nondiscrimination policy,” said Mike Uhlencamp, director of public affairs for the California State University system. “We have engaged with (InterVarsity) for the better part of a year and informed them they would have to sign a general nondiscrimination statement. They have not.”
This lack of institutional support for their beliefs means that universities will be required to back off, and let all deeply held religious beliefs receive a full hearing on their campus.
While some perceive this as bad news for LGBT members - forcing universities to discriminate, others wonder if this hands off policy couldn't open the door for a new kind of university support for alternative faiths.
No one is asking how well this may play out in the alternative faith community in Missouri, but a few quick searches and a phone call led me to understand that for many pagan and alternative faith organizations, this may be a real chance to gain standing on university campus sites previously denied.
Hearthfires, as well as Ozark Avalon Church, two pagan/wiccan faiths existing within the Columbia, Missouri community both could see new potential access to university support, with no questions asked that interfere with the practice of their faith.
While no organized alternative faiths exist, other mini-faiths may also find a chance to demand university recognition with no holds barred, under legislation that provides for