Bill in California Legislature to force Christian colleges to surrender opposition to LGBT agenda. Take action!

Passed in Senate; now in Assembly

MassResistance California mobilizing to help stop it

Latest national LGBT effort - coming to your state?

June 27 2016

The LGBT movement has begun an aggressive national effort to force religious colleges to give up their moral opposition to homosexual and transgender behavior -- under threats of harassment, lawsuits, loss of funding.

The latest national LGBT assault is to pass laws around the country to force conservative Christian colleges to surrender their opposition to homosexual and transgender behavior.

The first such bill, S1146, was recently introduced in the California Legislature. On June 26, it passed the California State Senate. It is now in the Assembly and is having a public hearing this Tuesday before the Judiciary Committee. MassResistance is mobilizing to help stop it.

Currently, Christian colleges can seek religious exemptions from federal mandates on “transgenderism” (and possibly also “sexual orientation”). But this bill would force colleges in the state to publicize their policies and practices that are supposedly “discriminatory.” It would encourage state and local lawsuits from students and employees, as well as other retribution directed at the colleges. It will very likely lead to curtailment of California state grants to needy students of those colleges.

The bill is clearly meant as a hammer against conservative Christian colleges that attempt to keep their moral values intact.

The California State Capitol. Unfortunately, a lot of terrible legislation goes through there these days.

Background

The LGBT movement has successfully infiltrated and forced their ideas on many traditionally religious colleges across the country. Nevertheless, a number of smaller religious colleges have not succumbed, and continue to hold a standard of Biblical morality. In many cases, this includes banning homosexual behavior and refusing to hire openly homosexual faculty. This has stymied and angered the LGBT movement, which demands 100% capitulation to its agenda.

The LGBT movement learned from the Gordon College firestorm

Then, in 2014, the LGBT radicals discovered a way to enforce compliance. Gordon College, a conservative evangelical Christian college in Massachusetts, had signed a letter to the White House requesting that a religious exemption be added to a planned executive order barring institutions that receive any federal money from discriminating on the basis of “sexual orientation.” The Boston Globe found out and immediately publicized it. The Globe’s message was that Gordon College was seeking the legal right to discriminate!

The local LGBT movement immediately began fomenting a liberal firestorm against the college. Within weeks, (1) the city of Lynn, MA, discontinued their use of Gordon College student teachers in its school system; (2) the city of Salem, MA, terminated a contract allowing the college to use a public building; (3) the Peabody-Essex Art Museum ended its relationship with the college; and, most distressing, (4) the New England Association of School and Colleges announced that it was going to review Gordon’s accreditation. Also, there were well-publicized petitions, protests, and rallies by liberal Gordon students against the college administration.

The Gordon college administration basically panicked. Instead of defending their principles, they went into a “church of nice” mode  and eventually capitulated on most critical fronts.

The LGBT movement saw that forcing a Christian college to reveal that it was seeking a “discrimination” exemption could be leveraged to force the school to abandon its religious principles.

It is unfortunate that federal money has become intertwined so deeply into higher education and student loans that very few colleges have been able to extricate themselves from that (and make it up with fundraising).

Leveraging the Title IX exemption process to harass and intimidate

The federal Title IX regulation bans “sex discrimination” by institutions receiving federal money. Religious colleges can apply for an exception to the regulation.

In 2014, under the Obama Administration, the federal Department of Education issued a “clarification” that that the Title IX discrimination prohibition “extends to claims of discrimination based on gender identity or failure to conform to stereotypical notions of masculinity or femininity.” In response, a number of religious institutions have applied for a Title IX exemption on that basis.

This is where the LGBT movement saw its opportunity. At the end of 2015 the well-funded national LGBT organization “Human Rights Campaign” (HRC) published a report, “Title IX Religious Exemptions – Putting LGBT Students at Risk.”

The report claims that transgender students are terribly “harmed” because Christian colleges won’t accept their “identity” or behavior. It outlines the need to for a national campaign to force all Christian colleges to be required “publicize” their exemption and “to inform their communities and prospective students when they request the right to discriminate.” The intent is to attract harassment to these colleges, and intimidate them into abandoning their Christian moral beliefs. The report names dozens of Christian colleges around the country that have already asked for exemptions.

(In addition, some federal courts have already begun to re-interpret “sex discrimination” to include both homosexuality and transgenderism. There is a fear that homosexuality will soon be incorporated into Title IX, and thus require further exemption attempts by religious institutions.)

Here’s what California Bill S1146 does . . .

The LGBT movement decided to start in California. The sponsor of Bill S1146 is State Senator Ricardo Lara who is openly “gay” and is the powerful chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee.

In its current form, Bill S1146 basically says:

1. A religious college seeking a Title IX exemption must publicize “the basis for claiming the exemption and the scope of the allowable activities provided by the exemption. ” Specifically, this information must be

(a) Given to current and prospective students, faculty members, and employees

(b) Displayed in a prominent location

(c). Included in written materials to students seeking admission

(d) Be part of the orientation process for new students

(e) Re-distributed to all faculty and staff members at the beginning of each academic year

(f) Included in any publication of the institution that sets forth the comprehensive rules, regulations, procedures, and standards of conduct for the institution

2. All paperwork materials regarding a Title IX exemption must be submitted to the state “Student Aid Commission.”

3. These rules by themselves don’t affect the state student aid program, but the accompanying laws regarding discrimination are still in effect. [This presents an disturbing legal paradox. If the now-publicized “discrimination” is allowed by the Title IX exemption but is illegal under state law, would the state aid to the students be thus discontinued if LGBT activists sued?]

4. Students can still seek “civil remedies” under state anti-discrimination laws. [A clear invitation to lawsuits, once the information is made public.]

See the current text of the bill here. 

Since being introduced S1146 has gone through several changes, usually for the worse. For example, previously the bill contained a blanket exemption for programs teaching theology or ministry, but that was removed on June 21.
  
In addition, there are four “analysis” reports of the bill produced by the House and Senate committee staff. In every one of those analyses, the HRC report is prominently included. (This shows a national campaign is underway.) A few of the analyses mention specific colleges in California who would be targeted should this bill pass.

California MassResistance goes into action

California MassResistance is not standing still. We are helping organize testimony at the State Capitol on Tuesday, and other protests around the state. We will have more information on this coming up.

Here is the California MassResistance press release.

TESTIFY at the public hearing on Thursday morning June 30:

(NOTE: Change of hearing date. We had originally reported in this post that the public hearing was Tuesday morning, June 28. On Monday afternoon we learned that the committee suddenly moved the hearing date to Thursday, June 30.)

If you can go to the California State Capitol in Sacramento on Thursday morning, June 30, please do so (and let us know):

Assembly Judiciary Committee hearing:
Thursday, June 30, at approximately 11:00 a.m. in room 444 of the State Capitol
(The hearing will begin after the Assembly adjourns its meeting.)

CALL the Judiciary Committee members!

Tell them: “Vote NO on S1146. Do NOT oppress and harass Christian colleges that don’t agree with the LGBT political agenda.”

Mark Stone, Chair – Democrat; Santa Cruz – (916) 319-2029
Donald P. Wagner, Vice Chair – Republican; Irvine – (916) 319-2068
Luis A. Alejo – Democrat; Salinas – (916) 319-2030
Ed Chau – Democrat; Monterey Park – (916) 319-2049
David Chiu – Democrat; San Francisco – (916) 319-2017
James Gallagher – Republican; Plumas Lake – (916) 319-2003
Cristina Garcia – Democrat; Bell Gardens – (916) 319-2058
Chris R. Holden – Democrat; Pasadena – (916) 319-2041
Brian Maienschein – Republican; San Diego – (916) 319-2077
Philip Y. Ting – Democrat; San Francisco – (916) 319-2019

Some say that too often in California, pro-family people don’t get involved soon enough. A bad bill gets passed, then they hope that the Governor vetoes it. Or they try an expensive referendum to overturn it. We are working with people to get very involved BEFORE it gets out of the legislature!

If this horrible bill is not stopped now, it could spread across the country. We will continue to report on this critical issue.

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