Actually, it is not true that the government cannot or does not impose all-comer human rights policies on religions expecting government benefits outside Hastings. That is the core of the Bob Jones Univ case. That is why I raised race discrimination earlier
Marci Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry -----Original Message----- From: "Esenberg, Richard" <richard.esenb...@marquette.edu> Date: Thu, 13 May 2010 14:24:57 To: hamilto...@aol.com<hamilto...@aol.com>; Law & Religion issues for LawAcademics<religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu>; Rick Duncan<nebraskalawp...@yahoo.com> Subject: RE: A real-life on-campus example Marci wrote: Of course the marketplace works as I described it especially in the US. Groups thrive and shrivel and respond to and interact with the culture and if they cannot adapt to broadbased moral and social changes by changing their beliefs and practices, they become marginalized. That restatement of your description is accurate, but your initial position which presumed that churches maintain open doors and are subject to the whims of whomever walks througn was not accurate. The market place for religion does not - at least not outside of Hastings - operate under government compulsion that churches take all comers. And, at least outside of the fading Protestant mainline (a phenomenom which may be instructive here), churches don't welcome all comers without regard to creed. It is certainly true that religion organizations are affected by the culture outside. That is, in fact, the insight of post-liberal theology. Religion is formed in community and is porous. But whether it is good or bad for religion to be affected by the mainstream culture is not, I think, a decision for the state to make - which is why the matter will inevitably raise constitutional questions. It seems to me that free exercise implies that minority religious groups are perfectly free to barricade the garden. Now, of course, if you believe that it is desireable to drive religious organizations into some sphere defined by a set of commonly held views, you'll see it differently. Rick Esenberg Marquette ________________________________ From: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu [religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu] on behalf of hamilto...@aol.com [hamilto...@aol.com] Sent: Thursday, May 13, 2010 8:49 AM To: Rick Duncan; Law & Religion issues for Law Academics Subject: Re: A real-life on-campus example As I and others have said repeatedly, there is no censorship or suppression. No exclusion. Those are not the facts of this case In any event, I was speaking about the larger picture. I am interested in dis-covering the taboo that forbids us from discussing the obvious fact that religious groups are a part of the culture. And that they change. And that change can be good for religious groups. Marci Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry ________________________________ From: Rick Duncan <nebraskalawp...@yahoo.com> Date: Thu, 13 May 2010 06:34:38 -0700 (PDT) To: <hamilto...@aol.com>; Law & Religion issues for Law Academics<religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu> Subject: Re: A real-life on-campus example Marci says: "Groups thrive and shrivel and respond to and interact with the culture and if they cannot adapt to broadbased moral and social changes by changing their beliefs and practices, they become marginalized." I have no further questions of this witness. Marci's admission--that groups like the CLS must "adapt to broadbased moral and social changes by changing their beliefs"--demonstrates the important purpose of freedom of expressive association. That core purpose is that Government should not use its coercive power (including its power over public fora) to coerce expressive groups into "changing their beliefs." Government has no business telling expressive groups which beliefs are acceptable and which are unacceptable. Hastings can create a public forum and allow the marketplace to decide which ideas are marginal and which are not. Or it can close the forum and allow only school-sponsored groups to meet. But it cannot engage the fiction of maintaining a marketplace of ideas, while at the same time using its power to suppress ideas and beliefs that reject established versions of the truth. Rick Duncan Welpton Professor of Law University of Nebraska College of Law Lincoln, NE 68583-0902 "And against the constitution I have never raised a storm,It's the scoundrels who've corrupted it that I want to reform" --Dick Gaughan (from the song, Thomas Muir of Huntershill) _______________________________________________ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others.
