I’ve got a piece just up at the Daily Caller,
drawing on two brief stories earlier today that capture nicely the
growing intolerance of the Left for people and groups holding views with
which they disagree. One
arises from a decision by Yale’s Social Justice Network (SJN) of Dwight
Hall to deny membership to the school’s Choose Life at Yale (CLAY)
group. The second
concerns a proposed ban on judges affiliated with the Boy Scouts in
California. Both illustrate how a bedrock American principle, freedom of
association, is increasingly being gutted by the Left’s
anti-discrimination agenda.
The Yale case is straightforward. As blogger Katherine Timpf writes, although CLAY was provisionally admitted to the network over the past year, during which its members did voluntary work with a local non-profit organization helping pregnant women, CLAY was voted out last week because, said the chair of the Yale chapter of the ACLU (itself a member), admitting CLAY would “divert funds away from groups that do important work pursuing actual social justice.”
That’s par for the course on today’s campuses. It’s training for the real world, as seen in the California case. Here, blogger Patrick Howley writes:
Years ago, when I was a scout leader as my son was growing up, I read a lengthy insert in the handbook meant for leaders. It concerned sexual exploitation and the need for scout leaders to take it seriously, prompted doubtless by experience. Given the nature of scouting activities, often isolated in the wild, and the need to assure both boys and their parents concerning the potential for abuse, even if the BSA had never taken an express position on sexual orientation, its decision to disallow gay scout leaders would not be gratuitous.
Go to the Daily Caller piece for a fuller discussion of the principles at stake here and a glimpse at how the distinction between private and public and the further distinction between reasonable and unreasonable discrimination are being undermined by a political agenda that has the freedom of private association as its ultimate target.
The Yale case is straightforward. As blogger Katherine Timpf writes, although CLAY was provisionally admitted to the network over the past year, during which its members did voluntary work with a local non-profit organization helping pregnant women, CLAY was voted out last week because, said the chair of the Yale chapter of the ACLU (itself a member), admitting CLAY would “divert funds away from groups that do important work pursuing actual social justice.”
That’s par for the course on today’s campuses. It’s training for the real world, as seen in the California case. Here, blogger Patrick Howley writes:
The California Supreme Court Advisory Committee on The Code of Judicial Ethics has proposed to classify the Boy Scouts as practicing “invidious discrimination” against gays, which would end the group’s exemption to anti-discriminatory ethics rules and would prohibit judges from being affiliated with the group.Such a change in status could not be limited to the Boy Scouts, of course, but it’s a good start. That point was made in a letter to the committee from Catherine Short, legal director of the pro-life group Life Legal Defense Foundation. The Girl Scouts, numerous pro-life and religious groups, even the military practice “discrimination” of one kind or another, she wrote.
Years ago, when I was a scout leader as my son was growing up, I read a lengthy insert in the handbook meant for leaders. It concerned sexual exploitation and the need for scout leaders to take it seriously, prompted doubtless by experience. Given the nature of scouting activities, often isolated in the wild, and the need to assure both boys and their parents concerning the potential for abuse, even if the BSA had never taken an express position on sexual orientation, its decision to disallow gay scout leaders would not be gratuitous.
Go to the Daily Caller piece for a fuller discussion of the principles at stake here and a glimpse at how the distinction between private and public and the further distinction between reasonable and unreasonable discrimination are being undermined by a political agenda that has the freedom of private association as its ultimate target.
