Supreme Court hears arguments on whether to allow Christian campus groups

Story from the Wall Street Journal.

Excerpt:

Conservative and liberal justices on the Supreme Court dueled verbally over whether a student religious group has a constitutional right to receive state college funds while excluding homosexuals and others who violate its beliefs.

The case, argued Monday, stems from San Francisco, where the University of California’s Hastings College of the Law says its policy requires that student groups seeking benefits such as school funding or preferred access to meeting rooms admit any interested student.

Hastings refused to accept the Christian Legal Society as a registered student group because, starting in 2004, the organization has held members to a “statement of faith” prohibiting “fornication, adultery and homosexual conduct.”

The society sued, contending that the Hastings antidiscrimination policy violated its First Amendment right to associate with those it chooses and to select members and officers committed to promoting its beliefs. Lower courts agreed with Hastings, setting up a Supreme Court argument with both sides represented by lawyers who gained prominence during the administration of President George W. Bush.

[…]The student group was represented by Michael W. McConnell, a conservative scholar who has challenged prevailing views requiring a rigid separation between church and state. President Bush appointed him to a federal appeals court, but Mr. McConnell stepped down last year to head a center at Stanford Law School and litigate cases like this one.

“If Hastings is correct, a student who does not even believe in the Bible is entitled to demand to lead a Christian Bible study,” Mr. McConnell told the Supreme Court. While the school could bar discrimination based on “status”—such as race—it could not stop a student group from limiting membership to those who pledge fealty to its beliefs, he said.

And what about the wise Latina, who was appointed by Barack Obama, and hailed as a moderate?

Liberal justices said Hastings’s policy reflected a wish to avoid parsing the specific form of discrimination each student group might employ. Outside groups could still use campus facilities even if not officially registered, they said.

“Your group is not being excluded or ostracized completely,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor said. “You can meet in the cafeteria, you can meet in open spaces in the school.”

Elections have consequences.

Now I guess that there were apparently some people who thought that voting for Obama was consistent with authentic Christian faith. But look at how Obama’s judges like up on the issue compared to Bush’s judges. Real Christians are having their fundamental rights attacked by the secular left on campus, and the judges on the Supreme Court and going to decide what happens to those real Christians. University campuses are run by secular humanists who have no reason at all in their worldview to care about protecting anyone else’s rights – morality on naturalism is survival of the fittest and might makes right. They have no principles.

I vividly remember having a talk with two “Christians” who were heavily into NBA basketball and memorizing movie dialog in the parking lot of our office prior to the 2008 election. They assured me that all that was necessary to be a Christian was to attend church and to have a good time at church. They would not listen to a word I said about policies that were consistent with the Christian worldview – not even on abortion or traditional marriage. Obama had the right color of skin, and that’s all there was to it. And now we see the results of their voting. What will happen when they meet the authentic Christians they helped to persecute in Heaven?

In addition, let this be a lesson to Christians who are interested in making a difference in the world – we need more experts in the law like McConnell who have top tier credentials. Don’t waste your life – think about the most effective thing you think you might be able to do, and do that thing. It’s not meant to make you happy, it’s self-sacrificial service.

You can read more about McConnell here.

What does “quantitative easing” really mean?

There are some mild curse words in this, but it is the awesome. (H/T ECM and Lex Communis)

The video has gone the viral. It has the 600,000 views as of the 10 PM.

“Of course not, they are the Goldman Sachs. They make their money ripping off the American people”. LOL!

UPDATE: 24 hours later, and close to a million page views.

Obama administration hands out 111 waivers from Obamacare

This video is 2 minutes long. (H/T Wes Widner of Reason to Stand)

ECM sent me this article for those who cannot see the video.

Excerpt:

111 companies and organizations were granted waivers by Obama’s Dept. of Health and Human Services so that they could get out of having to comply with Obamacare and unions were particularly well rewarded by the HHS with these waivers.

Interestingly, there was no great announcement of these waivers issued to the press. The HHS buried the waiver announcement six layers deep on its webpage and posted them on Friday when they imagined no one would notice. It’s a typical Friday evening document dump so common when an administration wants to avoid the prying eyes of the people. So much for the “most transparent administration in history,” eh?

One thing is sure about these waivers. Obama rewarded his union pals quite well.

[…]Interestingly enough, Obama has waived the onerous Obamacare rules for quite a few healthcare providers, too. One wonders how good Obamacare could be if the rules are waived for actual healthcare providers?

That article has the full list of the 111 special interest groups who got waivers from Obamacare. The rest of the corporations who did not get waivers will just have to lose jobs, I guess. I guess those are the ones that didn’t support Obamacare.

Remember how unions were pushing for Obamacare? Well they got waivers from it, too.

Neil Simpson has a list of UNIONS that got exemptions:

  1. Service Employees Benefit Fund
  2. UFCW Allied Trade Health & Welfare Trust
  3. IBEW No.915
  4. Asbestos Workers Local 53 Welfare Fund
  5. Plumbers & Pipefitters Local 123 Welfare Fund
  6. UFCW Local 227
  7. UFCW Maximus Local 455
  8. Local 25 SEIU
  9. UFCW Local 1262
  10. Local 802 Musicians Health Fund
  11. Greater Metropolitan Hotel
  12. Local 17 Hospitality Benefit Fund
  13. I.U.P.A.T.
  14. Transport Workers
  15. UFT Welfare Fund
  16. UABT

That’s the list of KNOWN unions.

If Obamacare is so great, then why do all the Democrat special interest groups have to get exemptions from it? Could it be that Obamacare is a job-killing nightmare that not even Democrats want to be bound by?