The Supreme Court ruled against the Christian Legal Society at the University of California’s Hastings College of Law, which claimed that the First Amendment protected its right to refuse membership to gay and lesbian students. The Court upheld the college’s decision to prohibit such action, ruling “5-4 that the college’s decision did not violate the group’s First Amendment rights of association, free speech, and free exercise. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote for the majority”:

In requiring CLS—in common with all other student organizations—to choose between welcoming all students and forgoing the benefits of official recognition, we hold, Hastings did not transgress constitutional limitations. CLS, it bears emphasis, seeks not parity with other organizations, but a preferential exemption from Hastings’ policy.

Read more about this case at Religion Dispatches.

Tags: First Amendment, homosexuality, Supreme Court of the United States

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