Re: Religious organizations, tax-exempt status and same-sex marriage

Thanks to Marty and everyone else for the discussion here. I'm finding it very informative. I wanted to respond briefly, however, to Marty's wager below: And Eugene, I'd be willing to wager that very few of today's conservative > Christians' organizations will be "legally and socially marginalize

Re: Gordon College v. Bob Jones Redux v. Conflicts Actually Likely to Arise

Thanks, Jim for your thoughtful response. From: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu on behalf of James Oleske Sent: Thursday, April 30, 2015 3:42 PM To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics Subject: Re: Gordon College v. Bob Jones Redux v. Conflicts Actually

Re: Religious organizations, tax-exempt status and same-sex marriage

Luke, Speaking only for myself, I would approach each case by asking how the law or regulation would have treated similar discrimination issues before gay people asked for equal access. My understanding of the New Jersey rule is that it would have prohibited the denial of access for marriages invo

Re: Gordon College v. Bob Jones Redux v. Conflicts Actually Likely to Arise

Alan, I would not support the denial. Although I think sexual-orientation discrimination should be subject to heightened constitutional scrutiny, and although I think sexual-orientation discrimination should be prohibited in any context where the government maintains civil-rights laws that use rac

Re: Gordon College v. Bob Jones Redux v. Conflicts Actually Likely to Arise

Thanks, Marty. I think that is an appropriate way to characterize the question under the current federal legal framework for colleges. (State tax laws may present different questions with less predictable results.) I understand that you think attempts to revoke the tax exempt status of religio

Re: Religious organizations, tax-exempt status and same-sex marriage

The Methodist pavilion story that Luke invokes is constantly being under-described, in a misleading way. For a more complete account, you might want to look at pp. 279-80 of this: scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1055&context=njlsp On Thu, Apr 30, 2015 at 6:18 PM,

Re: Religious organizations, tax-exempt status and same-sex marriage

I have a question for Marty, Jim, and others who seem to be arguing that denial of tax-exempt status, at least at the federal level, is an extremely remote risk. What do you think of similar efforts at the state level? I'm thinking, for example, of how New Jersey denied tax-exempt status to a

RE: Religious organizations, tax-exempt status and same-sex marriage

It isn’t quite true that religious colleges are entitled to exemptions under Title IX. To qualify, colleges must be “controlled by a religious organization.” That is not true of, at least, many Evangelical colleges and universities, which are not controlled by a church or denomination. The threa

Re: Religious organizations, tax-exempt status and same-sex marriage

Precisely my point: religious colleges are entitled to an exemption under title ix; and even if the courts reject the EEOC's view that discrimination on the basis of gender identity is sex discrimination, religious colleges will almost certainly be entitled to the same exemption if and when Congre

RE: Religious organizations, tax-exempt status and same-sex marriage

Eugene is exactly right. For many conservative Christian (Evangelical and Catholic) colleges, any intimate homosexual relationship would fall under a more general prohibition against sex outside of marriage. These schools believe all sex outside of marriage is unbiblical, a violation of one of

Re: Religious organizations, tax-exempt status and same-sex marriage

BYU is unlike Notre Dame in that its standards on heterosexual and homosexual sexual activity is rigorously enforced, when possible ( enforced privately and with charity, to be sure, but still rigorously enforced). On Thu, Apr 30, 2015 at 1:01 PM, Marty Lederman wrote: > Maybe. But I doubt it.

Re: Religious organizations, tax-exempt status and same-sex marriage

I’m just catching up on this discussion — apologies for the time lag. Chip and Marty, Gordon College does have “Behavioral Standards” that read in part: A. Practices Governed by Scripture—The following be

Re: Gordon College v. Bob Jones Redux v. Conflicts Actually Likely to Arise

OK, a religious school in 2017 wishes to exclude LGBT students -- or more narrowly, those who are married -- even though few, if any, do so presently. What is the legal question then? Whether IRS currently has statutory authority to pull its tax-exempt status? Probably not since, after all, Cong

Re: Religious organizations, tax-exempt status and same-sex marriage

Brigham Young University and its law school (which sends clerks to SCOTUS 2-3 times a decade) requires its students to not engage in homosexual activity or anything which gives expression to homosexual feelings. It admits many students with a variety of sexual feelings, provided they choose to live

Re: Gordon College v. Bob Jones Redux v. Conflicts Actually Likely to Arise

The school or college could discriminate against the LGBT community in a variety of ways -- both as to students and faculty. But let's assume we are talking about 2017 and a privately funded religious college denies admission to a student because they are married to someone of the same sex. (I

Re: Religious organizations, tax-exempt status and same-sex marriage

Maybe. But I doubt it. Take Notre Dame, for example. It's student rule is this: "The University embraces the Catholic Church’s teaching that a genuine and complete expression of love through sex *requires a commitment to a total living and sharing together of two persons in marriage*. Conseque

RE: Religious organizations, tax-exempt status and same-sex marriage

Marty: I thought it was established that some colleges forbid sex by students outside of marriage. I assume that this isn’t a judgment about the civil law of adultery, but rather because they view such sex as deliberate sin. If so, why wouldn’t they “extend such rules to prohib

RE: Religious organizations, tax-exempt status and same-sex marriage

“Unless I’m mistaken, the IRS began to deny tax-exempt status to institutions that discriminate based on race in 1970. “ It started even earlier than that: in 1965, the IRS froze its approval of racially-discriminatory private schools for two years, while it tried to determine whether it had au

Re: Gordon College v. Bob Jones Redux v. Conflicts Actually Likely to Arise

A school that does not admit LGBT students, Alan? Are there even such schools *now*? In what year does your hypo occur? On Thu, Apr 30, 2015 at 2:30 PM, Alan E Brownstein wrote: > > None of us can predict the future very well. The world today is very > different than I thought it would be 30

Re: Religious organizations, tax-exempt status and same-sex marriage

The more I think about the details of this, the more I'm inclined to agree with Chip that the issue won't arise, even 20 years from now. After all, if there are few, if any, colleges in existence *today *that discriminate against gay students in any way, it's hard to see how there would be any Bob

RE: Religious organizations, tax-exempt status and same-sex marriage

James-I had not seen this so thank you very much for sharing. Since you sent to the entire list, I will also respond to the whole list. I am very familiar with this synagogue as I visited it several times when I taught at Tulane in 2009, although Greenberg was not the rabbi then. To put this

Re: Gordon College v. Bob Jones Redux v. Conflicts Actually Likely to Arise

None of us can predict the future very well. The world today is very different than I thought it would be 30 years ago. The question we can answer today is whether we would support or oppose the denial of a tax exemption to a privately funded religious school that engages in discrimination ag

Ninth Circuit Decision in "Reverse" Nativity Scene Case

The Ninth Circuit issued a decision in an interesting case this morning involving the City of Santa Monica's decision to close a forum that had previously been open to "Winter Displays." Here's the Ninth Circuit's summary: *** The panel affirmed the district court’s order dismissing a complaint b

Re: Religious organizations, tax-exempt status and same-sex marriage

Relevant to point #4 below, one Orthodox rabbi has weighed in very publicly on the Louisiana controversy: http://www.nola.com/opinions/index.ssf/2015/04/religious_freedom_louisiana.html On Thu, Apr 30, 2015 at 6:20 AM, Kwall, Roberta wrote: > I have been following this thread with interest,

Re: Gordon College v. Bob Jones Redux v. Conflicts Actually Likely to Arise

Thanks, Michael. Let me close on a point of agreement, albeit one that I understand will give you no comfort. In a 2011 article, Doug wrote the following: "There will come a time when religious hostility to gays and to same-sex relationships will be as disreputable as religious hostility to blacks

Re: Gordon College v. Bob Jones Redux v. Conflicts Actually Likely to Arise

Thanks Jim, I think, I was remembering the earlier Gordon College coverage that did not make the distinctions you mentioned (and which deserved more concern than it got). I do think it is conceivable Gordon College is understating its concerns, but agree with your interpretation of the recent stor

Re: Religious organizations, tax-exempt status and same-sex marriage

Thanks, Marty, for that answer and for understanding my mis-written question (I meant to ask "what do the rules permit different sex couples to do that same sex couples may not do?", but I mangled it in the earlier e-mail.) And I think Marty has identified the only likely discriminatory rule at a

RE: Religious organizations, tax-exempt status and same-sex marriage

I have been following this thread with interest, given that I have been doing a significant amount of research on homosexuality and Judaism. A few thoughts based on this perspective- 1) The discussion regarding tax exemptions has relevance not only for Conservative Christian but also for Ortho

Re: Religious organizations, tax-exempt status and same-sex marriage

I seriously doubt that any school has, or will have, a rule that prohibits same-sex "dating," as such, akin to one of the Bob Jones prohibitions (set out below). I'd also be surprised if any schools will refuse to admit, or will expel, students who are gay, or who are "partners" in a SSM (again, a

Re: Religious organizations, tax-exempt status and same-sex marriage

Last night, Michael Worley wrote, "some colleges forbid same-sex dating." This made me genuinely curious. These rules can't possibly forbid two men, or two women, from going to dinner and a movie; or forming a close bond of trust and friendship; or even expressing affection in the form of a hug.

Gordon College v. Bob Jones Redux v. Conflicts Actually Likely to Arise

My apologies to Michael for the delay in answering the question he asked of Chip and me earlier about Gordon College. I'll be honest, the Gordon College situation was not on my radar, and now I think I know why. Last October, the College issued a statement that "[c]ontrary to recent media reports,