California has long been an incubator for liberal ideas and a harbinger of the policy and cultural fights that are on the horizon. Lawmakers on the Left Coast are making clear that the conquest of public education is not enough. As public higher-ed institutions have been systematically stripped of any content, policies, or people who have anything to do with traditional values or religious faith, now it’s the religious schools which must be subjugated. While President Obama’s recent bathroom directive threatens all schools, at all levels of the educational continuum who receive Title IX funding, a new California bill threatens to bully religious universities into, well, not being so religious.

SB 1146, a bill before the California legislature, would, as the California Family Council points out, “force religious colleges and universities into a dreadful choice: either give up all state funding and state financial assistance for their students, or give up any ability to maintain the school’s religious convictions and institutional identity in hiring, student admissions, and student discipline.”

Faith-based schools already operate under exemptions that allow them to function according to the faith they espouse. This bill would narrow the existing exemptions making them only apply to schools, which are:

…controlled by a religious organization to prepare students to become ministers of the religion, to enter upon some other vocation of the religion, or to teach theological subjects pertaining to the religion, if the application of this chapter would not be consistent with the religious tenets of that organization.

This essentially means that Christian accounting students hoping for a well-rounded education at a college or university that supports their faith need not apply. As Biola University warned this week:

This functionally eliminates the religious liberty for students of all California faith-based colleges and universities who integrate spiritual life with the entire campus educational experience. Prayer or requiring chapel services, spiritual formation groups and ministry service are an integral part of the educational experience for faith-based campuses, and they are at risk if SB 1146 is passed.

If this was not enough, those schools that do meet the narrow criteria for the exemption must display their exemptions like a cancer warning on a cigarette package. The bill requires the institution to “disclose to current and prospective students, faculty members, and employees the basis for claiming the exemption.” And not just disclose. The bill requires the exemption disclosure to be plastered prominently in school buildings, materials, and in all content sent to prospective students.

The message this bill sends is clear: the radical Left wants to quarantine and confine religion but if they must, then they must wear a scarlet letter of stigmatization. It is the lawmakers who introduce such discriminatory legislation as this that should be publicly humiliated for violating the very clearly stated constitutional freedom of religion. The freedom of religion is not for institutions that award clerical collars, it is for each and every American. Legislation like this cannot be permitted to move forward at any level, in any state. If you live in California, follow the action steps provided here. The momentum of something like SB1146 passing would have national implications with a potential domino effect in other states as the emboldened Left sees opportunity to expand its suppression of the Christian faith.

Originally published here.

In the Eye of the Dorm

Few people have missed the storm of controversy over the Obama administration’s effort to force elementary and secondary schools to open girls’ restrooms, locker rooms, and showers to biological males who consider themselves transgender females. The Reuters news agency reports, however, about colleges scrambling to comply with another disturbing aspect of the administration’s “guidance” to educational institutions regarding “gender identity” — namely, its application to “Housing and Overnight Accommodations.” The Departments of Justice and of Education have warned that “a school must allow transgender students to access housing consistent with their gender identity and may not require students to stay in single-occupancy accommodations or to disclose personal information when not required of other students.”

This means your college freshman daughter could be assigned a biologically male roommate in her women’s dorm, and the college would be legally forbidden to notify her (or confirm, if asked) that her masculine-looking roommate is biologically male. Seeking to serve a student who identifies as transgendered while protecting the majority of other students by giving the transgendered-identifying student a single room isn’t allowed either, unless that student requests it.

Administration officials seem blind to the contradiction in promoting this insanity at the same time that they wring their hands over the problem of sexual assault on campus. As 13 states made clear in their lawsuit, schools and colleges should ignore the administration’s “guidance” — because it is not consistent with current law, and because it violates common sense.

Originally published here.

The Planned Presidencies of Planned Parenthood

If Hillary Clinton is elected president, Barack Obama won’t be the only president wishing God’s blessing on Planned Parenthood. [Friday] morning, in a very public display of mutual affection, the presumptive Democratic nominee made her top priorities clear when she delivered a major speech at Planned Parenthood Action Fund. “As your president, I will always have your back,” Clinton promised. Which is no real surprise since as a First Lady, senator, and State Department Secretary, she already has.

In Planned Parenthood’s 100 year-history, the group never backed a candidate as early in the nominating process as Hillary Clinton. Cecile Richards broke the new ground in January with a glowing statement on Secretary Hillary Clinton and her body of work protecting, funding, and advocating abortion-on-demand — and has continued solidifying the support for the last six months. “This [election] is about so much more than Planned Parenthood,” Richards has said. “Health care for an entire generation is at stake.” No, it’s the generation itself that’s at stake. If they don’t survive their mother’s womb, what good is health care?

That’s a question several female leaders of the pro-life movement asked in an organized protest of the speech [Friday] morning. Together, the women, who represent millions of women of all ages, released a joint statement blasting the partnership. “…[W]e cannot celebrate this first nomination of a woman for the office of the U.S. president by a major political party because of Hillary Clinton’s radical pro-abortion record and alliance with the abortion lobby. The unholy alliance between Clinton and Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion chain, is disgraceful.” FRC’s Arina Grossu, who was at the rally, was clear that electing Hillary Clinton would only continue the global abortion campaign started by Barack Obama.

“If elected president, Hillary Clinton would absolutely push radical policies that betray women and kill preborn babies. She would also push for the nomination of pro-abortion Supreme Court justices, which will have far-reaching consequences. She received $20 million from Planned Parenthood, America’s number one baby-killer and an organization that lies to vulnerable women for profit. Abortion is the ultimate exploitation of women. Clinton and Planned Parenthood have betrayed women by continuing to sell them the abortion industry’s lies.”

Originally published here.