March 20, 2014

All-Encompassing Regulation, Selective Enforcement

That's the governing philosophy I associate with today's PC Left and with many on the Right. David French:
For much of my life as a lawyer, a writer, and an advocate for Christian and conservative causes I’ve made a terrible mistake. I can remember exactly when I started down the wrong path. It was the year 2000, and Tufts University had just kicked a Christian student group off campus because the group (*gasp*) required its leaders to agree with the organization’s statement of belief. I represented the group, and when trying to explain why the group’s alleged act of “discrimination” was in fact an act of total common sense, I would say things like, “Would a gay student group want Christian fundamentalist leaders? Would a Muslim student group want Jewish leadership?”
...
I went on to present hypotheticals like this again and again, convinced I was making headway largely because everyone who already agreed with me found them convincing. I now understand that this messaging failed. Utterly and completely. Dozens of universities followed Tufts’ example, and religious free association is precarious, at best, on campus after campus.

...there is no chance that a Muslim student group would be forced to admit a hostile student because that would constitute discrimination against the Muslim student group. (In fact, when I once tried to persuade a Muslim leader to join with Christian groups in protecting religious liberty, he looked at me and said, “The college will never touch us. That would be discrimination.”)
They're interested in power. Justice and good governance are pretexts.

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