Having already espoused the idea that a religious school has the authority to dictate the conduct of its students to comport with its religious doctrine, no matter how absurd that seems to those who do not share the faith, Jerry Falwell’s Liberty U has taken it to the next level. From Mark Hine, VP of Student Affairs at Liberty U:I must inform you that the College democrats’ club is no longer going to be recognized as a
The Liberty Way states, “It is the duty of every student to respect Liberty’s Statement of Doctrine and Purpose. They may not engage in any activity on or off campus that would compromise the testimony or reputation of the University or cause disruption to Liberty’s Christian learning environment.”Even though this club may not support the more radical planks of the democratic party, the democratic party is still the parent organization of the club on campus. The Democratic Party Platform is contrary to the mission of LU and to Christian doctrine (supports abortion, federal funding of abortion, advocates repeal of the federal Defense of Marriage Act, promotes the “LGBT” agenda, Hate Crimes, which include sexual orientation and gender identity, socialism, etc). The candidates this club supports uphold the Platform and implement it. The candidates supported are directly contrary to the mission of LU. By using LU or Liberty University and Democrat in the name, the two are associated and the goals of both run in opposite directions.
Well, at least it’s not because they listen to rock & roll music and think it’s acceptable for boys and girls to hold hands.
Now it’s one thing for a religious school to dictate the conduct of its students, but another to dictate their political thought. In a strange way, I can understand why Liberty U has problems with a club within its midst overtly supporting such Falwell travesties as abortion and the “LGBT” agenda. Stuff like that just gives Falwell the heebie-jeebies. But to ban a political club because the parent party supports radical ideas that are contrary to Falwell’s version of life? Has this not gone well beyond any cognizable religious belief and deeply into the realm of political thought, regardless of religion?
The message seems clear: LU isn’t satisfied with controlling the conduct of its students. It wants to own their thoughts, to raise a student body of one political belief, confusing religion with politics and controlling both.
On the other hand, why would anybody who shares any belief similar to those of the Democratic Party chose to go to Liberty University? I mean, could you have made a more bizarre choice of schools?.
So the question ultimately comes down to whether a religiously-premised university should dictate the political beliefs of its students as well as their actions. The answer seems to be that when you buy Jerry Falwell, you get Jerry Falwell. And when it comes to Liberty University, you can either see things his way or get the boot. For anyone who might argue that LU is a legitimate university, this pretty much kills that notion.
Is it wrong for a school to demand that students share an institution’s political beliefs? You betcha. But when you signed up for Jerry Falwell’s Liberty U, didn’t you realize what you were doing?
H/T Lee
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“Has this not gone well beyond any cognizable religious belief and deeply into the realm of political thought, regardless of religion?”
No. It’s landed right in the middle of religous debate. The fact that the Democrat party champions these causes is indisputable as is the university’s view.
Show me a political party that doesn’t confuse religeon with politics and I’ll show you a Libertarian with more faith in “the market” than Moses ever had in God.
“Is it wrong for a school to demand that students share an institution’s political beliefs?”
It would be but they haven’t started an inquisition to round up liberal students and burn witches. Instead they have just stated that they will not give license to organizations so radically opposed to their ideology.
In other words, they aren’t dictating what students believe but they aren’t going to recognize students who have gathered under the banner of their ideological enemy either.
I cannot wait for their tax-exempt status to get yanked. LU is little more than a diploma mill for right-wing drones created to fill the American Taliban’s coffers. Has the Dem club been pulled from Wake Forest, BC, Georgetown, BYU, Yeshiva (oh wait, that’s right, the Dems are the party of the Jews according to Falwell’s ilk, maybe Yeshiva should ban their campus Repub Club).
Why should a “Christian” University allow their students to back a political party with a focus on trying to help the poor… much better to support the party that supports torturing people (as long as they’re out of the womb, and have dark skin, it’s ok, I guess…), way more “Christian” of them.
Well Dave, you’re right, if they want to make a statement against torture, they’d have to ban both parties, unless someone believes Pelosi’s and Rockefeller’s knowledge gap. So perhaps torture wasn’t on LU’s mind. As for one party trying to help the poor by taking it from the rich, looks like a non sequitur to me, to say the least. Coz I ain’t rich and they sure fixin’ to take it from me.
How would yanking their tax-exempt status not be “prohibiting the free exercise thereof”? (Or is that something you’re OK with?)
“…much better to support the party that supports torturing people…” I’m neither a lawyer nor a psycholgist but I think that’s what is called “projection.”
As I recall, it was a Republican who sponsored the first bill since the beginning of the GWoT to ban torture.
If the Democrat Party’s sole mission was “to help the poor” then I can all but guarantee you that their child organizations would not be banned at LU. As it is, LU as a single entity view abortion as murder and the DNC clearly states in its party platform as not only supporting it but that it should be an entitlement as well.
If by the phrase “American Taliban” you are referring to the Republican Party, that is as fallacious as comparing Barack Obama to Adolf Hitler. Please ask anyone who has had any intimate dealings with the Taliban about this.
Okay, everybody got their licks in. That’s enough of that. This isn’t a competition over which political party can beat the other one, but that a religious school banned a political party club.
Back to the topic.
“But when you signed up for Jerry Falwell’s Liberty U,didn’t you realize what you were doing?”
Apparently not. They don’t seem to get it that intolerant beliefs will be followed by intolerant action. I wonder if they didn’t wholeheartedly support the intolerance before, didn’t even think about it. Now I wonder if there are way more apologies from the affected students, for having strayed from the path, than complaints. Kind of amusing in a way.
Anyone who attends or teaches at that piece of shit “university” is (perhaps) qualified to clean the toilets in a bus station — but nothing more.
I think you nailed it with the last line. To use a Texas example, it’s like a vegetarian going to a bbq and getting annoyed when there’s only meat to eat.
Is it possible for a university to have a single point of view on any subject?
In general the answer is no but in the case of Liberty University the answer is yes. I think that is proof by demonstration that it is not a legitimate university.
Jerry Falwell died last year – I think that his son is now running Liberty University. Falwell has a ton of faults, but he was actually a lot more tolerant of people with different views that was generally reported (he would at least meet with gay rights advocates and would appear at college campuses debating Larry Flynt on free speech).
Some interesting stories about Liberty University – when my sister was looking at colleges, one of the colleges she received material from was Liberty University – everyone in my family laughed at the application which included a question on whether the applicant had ever spoke in tongues followed by a question about whether the applicant had ever received psychological counseling. My mother wanted my sister to apply as a joke stating that she speaks in tongues on a daily basis and loves dancing to see what happened. My sister refused to go along.
When I was in college at a highly rated college in Virginia, I requested a book my college library didn’t have through interlibrary loan – amusingly, the book (a biography of former Vice Prsident, Secretary of Agriculture, founder of Pioneer Hybred International, and noted geneticist and political liberal Henry A. Wallace) was shipped by the Liberty University library – it came with a disclaimer saying something like they are providing the book for knowledge but they do not endorse its contents.
I can think of a couple of possible explanations for why there might be some Democrats at Liberty University – Falwell when he was alive stated his ambition that Liberty University would be the Notre Dame or the BYU of Southern Baptists – it wasn’t clear whether he was talking about as an academic institution or as a football team wasn’t entirely clear. But Falwell was trying to build a football power – it basically turned out to be a bad D-1AA team, but everytime I’ve seen them play they have had a lot of Black players on their team.
The second is basically second hand info – apparently a lot of Southern Baptist parents force their kids to go there – well, at least some. I’ve heard stories which indicate that occurs – I have no idea why any parent would do that when there are plenty of creditible religious institutions around.
Finally, Lynchburg, Virginia is pretty out of the way – there are a lot of colleges in the area but most are small and have pretty hard admissions standards – Liberty University is by far the largest school near by. I’d imagine that at least some people go there because they live in the Lynchburg area and there are no other convenient colleges they can get into.
Odd that Dave mentioned Wake Forest – as their divinity school’s website discusses, WFU severed ties with the Southern Baptists and is now officially non-demoniational, historically Baptist (which is often called American Baptist). http://divinity.wfu.edu/about.html
It is difficult to forget that historically the Baptist church was fairly liberal up to the 1970s.
I have a sister in law who lives in Lynchburg. I’ve been to Lynchburg. It seems clear that W.C. Fields never visited Lynchburg.