New Kansas law lets campus religious groups restrict members
Source: Washington Post
TOPEKA, Kan. Kansas conservative Republican governor signed legislation Tuesday allowing faith-based groups at college campuses to restrict membership to like-minded people, likely putting the state on a collision course with civil liberties groups.
The GOP-dominated Legislature approved the legislation earlier this month, even though the U.S. Supreme Court ruled nearly six years ago that universities can require membership in such groups to be open to all. Supporters have said the bill was a victory for the freedom to exercise religious beliefs, but opponents called it a veiled attempt to legalize discrimination.
Kansas already has a religious objections law that prevents state or local governments from limiting peoples freedom to express their religion, though that law doesnt touch on organizations at universities. With Gov. Sam Brownbacks signature, Kansas becomes the second state after Oklahoma to have a college-specific law.
This is very good, narrow, targeted piece of legislation that will serve the betterment of our college campuses, Brownback said.
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Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/higher-education/kansas-governor-signs-bill-protecting-faith-groups-on-campus/2016/03/22/cfdca098-f06f-11e5-a2a3-d4e9697917d1_story.html
SDJay
(1,089 posts)is like watching a car accident when the car is being driven by some drunk guy and his dimwitted buddies who are egging him on to go faster.
What a total disaster that state has become in every conceivable political way.
How bad do people think it has to get there before people will actually admit that the RWNJ dream of utopia is actually a totally dystopian reality? When there are literally no residents left except for the few that managed to skim off the top along with some starving children?
It's unbelievable.
longship
(40,416 posts)The GOP in KS has been a fundamentalist religious cabal for decades. Trust me. I was a Democratic operative in Wichita for 18 years. I was a county officer and eventually went to the state Dem convention. Democratic Governor Joan Finney, who I otherwise respected, told me to my face that she would not veto the death penalty bill, but would let it pass into law without her signature (she was a good Catholic, apparently). We watched things like this happen before our very eyes. The Sedgwick County GOP newsletter read more like a Jack Chick track than a political one. Jesus this, and Jesus that.
This is the result. It isn't pretty. Thankfully I am back in my home state, Michigan, but here we have the goddamn Calvanists (DeVos and his evil spawn in Grand Rapids -- half the town is named after him and his evil AmWay religious cult).