Carson-Newman University is a private Southern Baptist college in Tennessee. They’ve just received a waiver from the federal government on Title 9—a civil right that protects against sex discrimination in education. Getting a waiver allows one to discriminate against gay students and unwed mothers and pregnant women and women who may have had an abortion. Not being able to discriminate against these people sounds like devil worship to Dr. Randall O’Brien, the President of Carson-Newman University:
Dr. Randall O'Brien is the president of the private Southern Baptist college in Jefferson County. He says he sent a letter back in May asking to be exempt from Title 9, which says colleges are not allowed to discriminate against students. He said, "This is who we are our religious principles and in a changing world we want to reaffirm who we are and intend to be."
Dr. O'Brien told Local 8 News he filed for the waiver after his attorney advised him to do so. Anchor Lauren Davis asked him, "You're the president, you're not going to file anything unless you understand it." Dr. O'Brien responded, "Yeah I understood our legal council said it would further make us a Christian school.”
In Dr. O’Brien’s defense, his religion believes that women are the weaker sex. They are easily influenced by the devil and whim except when they are tempting men and then men are weaker and easily influenced by the devil, but men are still stronger. It totally makes sense if you don’t think about it at all. Also, gay people have cooties. You can read the letter here.
None of it is surprising. It’s mostly concerning how homophobic Southern Baptist religion is and how badly they do not want to deal with gay stuff at their school. They also point out that they believe marriage is a gift from God and that it is between a man and a woman. They also happen to mention that they believe God’s gift of life begins at “conception.”
The lawyer who advised Dr. O'Brien to file for the waiver also filed for nearly a dozen other Christian schools across the country. A total of 30 are now exempt from Title 9.