America has a First Amendment, something which many other countries do not have. Theoretically the First Amendment protects freedom of speech–even if you express a viewpoint that is unpopular, you have the right to express that viewpoint. Theoretically.
Yesterday the National Review Online posted an article about some recent events at Gordon College. D. Michael Lindsay, president of Gordon College, signed a letter (as an individual) to President Obama requesting that a religious exemption be included in a recent executive order signed by President Obama.
The article reports:
In July 2014, President Obama, carrying out yet another threat to act by executive fiat where the federal legislature would not, signed an order prohibiting the federal government and federal contractors from discriminating in hiring based on “sexual orientation” and “gender identity.” However, unlike the Senate-approved Employment Non-Discrimination Act, after which it was modeled, the president’s order offered no exemption to religious organizations, raising the possibility that organizations with faith-based objections to same-sex marriage might no longer be able to qualify as federal contractors.
The letter signed by D. Michael Lindsay was also signed by thirteen other religious leaders, including Rick Warren, pastor of California’s Saddleback Church, who delivered the invocation at President Obama’s first inauguration, and Michael Wear, national faith vote director for President Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign.
Unfortunately, standing up for your faith in America has consequences.
The article reports:
Eight days after Lindsay’s letter, Kimberley Driscoll, mayor of nearby Salem, Mass., prohibited the school from any longer using Salem’s historic Old Town Hall, “despite a long and positive relationship.” Driscoll wrote to Lindsay that she was “disappointed” with the school’s “hurtful and offensive” stance.
In August, the nearby Lynn Public Schools board declared that it would no longer accept Gordon College students into its student-teacher program — in express violation of students’ constitutional rights to free speech, religious practice, and association.
And the next month, in the most alarming episode yet, the New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC), Gordon’s accrediting body, announced that it would have to evaluate whether “Gordon College’s traditional inclusion of ‘homosexual practice’ as a forbidden activity” violates the organization’s accreditation standards. Then, as if to imply its conclusion foregone, the NEASC offered Gordon one year “to ensure that the College’s policies and procedures are non-discriminatory.” The NEASC is a private organization and can establish whatever accreditation criteria it likes — but it has never before considered a college’s religious identity, and an accreditation agency cannot if it wishes to receive “recognition” from the Department of Education (a de facto necessity). But surely Arne Duncan can make an exemption.
Again, the letter was signed as an individual–not as the college president.
Are we at a place where the president of a Christian college is no longer permitted to stand up for Christian values? The political left has many places it can attend college–there is no reason at all to tear down a school that supports the values that Christianity teaches. Gordon College is the victim of a bullying campaign by those who claim to want to end bullying. Ironic, isn’t it?