GOP Senators Lead Charge Against Biden Trying To Nix Rule Protecting Campus Religious Groups | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's Note: This post appears here courtesy of the The Daily Wire. The author of this post is Ben Zeisloft.

    Senate Republicans introduced legislation to codify a rule protecting the freedom for religious groups to assemble on college campuses as the Biden administration seeks to reverse them.

    The Trump administration introduced the Religious Liberty and Free Inquiry Rule three years ago in order to ensure that public universities do not deny religious student organizations "any right, benefit, or privilege," such as student activities funding and access to campus facilities, "that is otherwise afforded to other student organizations at the public institution." Universities which are found in violation of such rights risk losing federal grants under the current rule; the Biden administration, however, proposed a reversal of the rule last month.

    Sen. James Lankford (R-OK), Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), and 14 other Senate Republicans introduced the Equal Campus Access Act to enshrine the current rule into federal law. The lawmakers contended in a letter to Education Secretary Miguel Cardona that reversing the rule would leave religious student groups open to violations of First Amendment liberties.

    "Student organizations, including religious ones, play an important role on campus and in the lives of college students. Unfortunately, the proposed rule threatens students' ability to grow and learn while practicing and observing their respective faiths," the letter said. "Students desire organized fellowship on college campuses to learn and practice their faith with like-minded students. They should be afforded the same rights as any other student organization on campus, not discriminated against merely because of their sincerely held religious beliefs."

    The Education Department asserted that the previous rule should be reversed because the policy is "not necessary" to protect free speech and free exercise of religion, tends to create "confusion among institutions," and prescribes an "unduly burdensome role" for officials to investigate allegations of mistreatment. The lawmakers countered that the Education Department has failed to "provide any examples" of universities formally complaining about the confusing nature of the rules and asserted that calling the protection of religious freedom "unduly burdensome" represents an "alarming admission" from the agency.

    Prominent nationwide religious organizations, such as InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, Reformed University Fellowship, and the Jewish Coalition for Religious Liberty, recently drafted their own letter in support of the Equal Campus Access Act. "The right to assemble together based on religiously informed beliefs is foundational to a free and truly pluralistic society," the entities wrote.

    The proposed rule reversal is one of several Biden administration policies that critics consider a threat to religious liberty. House Republicans pushed earlier this week to guarantee that the text of the forthcoming federal budget prohibits agencies from taking discriminatory action against people or organizations on the basis of a "sincerely held religious belief, or moral conviction, that marriage is, or should be recognized as, a union of one man and one woman."

    The call for explicit religious liberty protections in the budget comes after President Joe Biden endorsed the Respect for Marriage Act, which enshrines same-sex marriage protections into federal law in accordance with the Supreme Court's opinion in Obergefell v. Hodges. Democratic lawmakers recruited 39 Republicans in the House and 10 Republicans in the Senate to support the bill, which became law in December.

poll#170

Considering what has happened to our Representative Republic since the corruptive orthodoxy that led to the tolerated abomination - The Russia Hoax - where felonies were perpetrated upon the American People by the creation of the Two Tiered Justice System, in the misnomer of "Social Justice:" Where do you stand on sustaining our constitutionally guaranteed freedoms in a society where injustice is chronically sanctioned by one political orthodoxy?

  I believe in a perfected society by employing a higher governmental authority to train the behavior of the public.

  The United States Constitution does not allow just a few freedoms, it guarantees ALL freedoms promised to Humankind by God.

  Just don't take away my Social Media.

421 total vote(s)     What's your Opinion?

poll#164

It has been far too many years since the Woke theology interlaced its canons within the fabric of the Indoctrination Realm, so it is nigh time to ask: Does this Representative Republic continue, as a functioning society of a self-governed people, by contending with the unusual, self absorbed dictates of the Woke, and their vast array of Victimhood scenarios?

  Yes, the Religion of Woke must continue; there are so many groups of underprivileged, underserved, a direct result of unrelenting Inequity; they deserve everything.

  No; the Woke fools must be toppled from their self-anointed pedestal; a functioning society of a good Constitutional people cannot withstand this level of "existential" favoritism as it exists now.

  I just observe; with this thoughtful observation: What will happen "when the Vikings are breeching our walls;" how do the Woke react?

845 total vote(s)     What's your Opinion?