Faith Groups Force Temporary Victory in California Gender Ideology Fight

By Dustin Siggins Published on August 11, 2016

It what is at least a temporary victory for faith-based and religious liberty groups, a California legislator has pulled a bill that opponents say would have forced religious schools to accept gender ideology.

The Los Angeles Times reports that state Senator Ricardo Lara will remove a provision of SB 1146 that would have allowed LGBT students to sue private colleges universities for discrimination if disciplined or restricted according to the school’s religious beliefs.

Lara vowed to push the revised bill forward, which still puts significant pressure on religious groups to acquiesce the LGBT marriage and identity agenda or lose state funding. He says he’ll push the dropped provision in separate legislation, according to the Times.

The Bill

In the full text of the bill before Lara’s proposed changes, SB 1146 eliminates an exemption that allows religiously-affiliated schools to adhere to the tenets of their faiths when their rules violate what the state considers discrimination on the basis of “sexual orientation or gender identity.” Institutions like seminaries that train students for ministry would be exempt – but any that wish to be granted exemptions would have to apply for an exemption and have that application placed online by the state.

Colleges and universities that received exemptions would also have to tell students, potential students, faculty and others of the implications of an exemption, according to an analysis conducted by the state’s legislature. The bill, which has been changed several times, was going to provide students at exempted schools a right to sue schools if they felt discriminated against until Lara retracted that part of the bill.

The bill’s opponents have taken special issue with a provision that declares any institution “that receives financial assistance from the state or enrolls students who receive state financial assistance is subject to” the law. Because many students attend religious schools with the help of a state award program, Cal Grant, opponents say SB 1146 discriminates against poor students who might not be able to attend the religious school they prefer.

“SB 1146 directly and explicitly infringes on the ability of Cal Grant students — all of whom are low-income, and three-quarters of whom are minorities — to attend the religious college of their choice,” Becket Fund for Religious Liberty attorney Daniel Blomberg told The Stream.

Exempt schools would be allowed to segregate men and women, as well as married couples, but only if the institutions consider “marriage” to include same sex couples for the latter, and if the institutions recognized gender identity as flexible for the former.

Hard Charge by Religious Groups and LGBT Groups

The provisions of the bill led to enormous opposition from groups like the Catholic Cardinal Newman Society, which said religious schools’ liberty would be at risk if SB 1146 passed into law. Multiple coalitions of faith-based groups applied pressure on California lawmakers, finally forcing Lara to pull the bill, which was supposed to get a vote in the state Assembly today.

A previous version of SB 1146 passed the state Senate earlier this week.

The Times reports that six universities had intended to run ads against members of the state legislature. That pressure buttressed that from Becket, which ran videos of students explaining how SB 1146 would harm them. Lobbying was done by 32 institutions, and two major religious leaders — Los Angeles Catholic Archbishop José Gomez and Bishop Charles Blake of the Church of God in Christ – wrote a statement opposing the legislation.

Backers of SB 1146  cite the Obama administration’s interpretation of the 1972 anti-sex discrimination law, Title IX, to claim religious institutions that hold to traditional sexual values are in violation of gender identity non-discrimination.

However, the administration admitted in a letter that its interpretation isn’t binding. Additionally, opponents claim that there is no need for further regulation of belief systems, as other anti-discrimination laws exist in California and federal law.

Proponents say the bill ends discrimination. “SB 1146 would close a loophole that allows private universities to discriminate against students and staff based on their gender identity, gender expression, or sexual orientation,” according to Equality California. “Senate Bill 1146 would require universities that are granted a Title IX exemption to disclose that information to the California Student Aid Commission and disseminate the information to students and staff.”

A press release from the Becket Fund sent on Wednesday said a petition against the bill has 100,000 signatures, and a website opposing SB 1146 noted that “the four-year graduation rate for Cal Grant students in the religious schools targeted by SB 1146 is 59 percent, compared to only 28 percent in the state schools SB 1146 is forcing them into.” According to Becket, SB 11146 would cause taxpayers to “end up paying about $100 million more per year for less quality education.”

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