For the Sake of Science

The Supreme Court recently said a university is not required to give its student groups the same First Amendment protections a private group would receive so long as it is treating the groups equally. It’s akin to a private employer allowing its employees to form groups while putting the restriction on them that no employee may be excluded from any given group for any reason. It’s entirely reasonable.

Now a professor – Mike Adams – has a column I suspect is tongue-in-cheek.

I can’t stand atheists. And I plan to do something about them. Thankfully, the U.S. Supreme Court has given me a powerful tool to use in my war against the godless. Earlier this week, the Court ruled that a public university may require all student organizations to admit any student as a voting member or officer. The decision applies even to a student who is openly hostile to the group’s fundamental beliefs.

It’s perplexing why Adams is focusing on atheists. The decision was based upon the Christian group suing a university. Atheists had nothing to do with it. But whatever. He’s right, students hostile to the message of a group may still join that group – provided the school has an all-comers policy. I’m not sure Adams’ university, UNC, has that policy. If it doesn’t, his whole rant doesn’t apply.

Another site that picked up on Adams has pointed out another flaw in this DIABOLICAL PLAN!

The court’s decision pointed out that student groups could still, for example, expel members who didn’t pay dues, or restrict officer positions to those who had been members for a year or more. If his “young Christian warriors” wanted to disrupt an atheist club, they’d have to sit and wait for a year, paying to promote atheism the whole time, before they’d get their chance. I doubt many Christians would be willing to do that. Or an atheist law students’ club could just forgo official recognition, exactly as the court emphasized that they could, and restrict their membership to professing nonbelievers.

The final point is the primary problem with what Adams is saying. As so many angry, bitter, legally doltish Christians seem to do, Adams is conflating what private groups must be allowed to do versus what university endorsed groups must be allowed to do. As the Supreme Court noted, a student group can forgo official recognition by the university, thus becoming just another private group, allowed to exclude a great many people. In other words, the court said universities do not have to endorse bigotry.

But Adams continues.

The Court acknowledges that such “accept all comers” policies may not in fact be desirable for maintaining robust debate on public college campuses. I concur. And I like it that way. I do not seek robust debate. I seek power over the godless heathen dissident.

The article is tongue-in-cheek and I don’t foresee Adams actually following through, but this makes sense. I mean, the arguments of atheists have long frustrated theists who are unable to give coherent responses. (And by “frustrated theists” I mean all theists who have ever bothered to think.) The only reason Christians and other theists are able to maintain any power is through sheer numbers, not rationality or reason.

But sure, Adams can go ahead and invade other groups if he really wants. He might even succeed in making sure universities do not adopt all-comers policies. But he’ll still be wrong about this Supreme Court decision. And all because he is unable to differentiate between protections for private groups under the constitution and protections for what private groups may do within their own internal structure. It’s sad and intellectually pathetic.

Filed under: Atheism/Humanism, News, Religions | Tagged: Christian Legal Society, CLS, Hastings, Intellectually pathetic, Mike Adams, Supreme Court, UNC | 3 Comments »