How Gay Marriage Could Hurt Christian Colleges
WASHINGTON -- It's a scary thought, but a day may be coming when institutions that proclaim they only believe in traditional marriage may be considered as abhorrent as racists and bigots.
But what the government had to say at the Supreme Court indicated that day could be coming soon.
Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, is so concerned by what he heard in the arguments over same-sex marriage at the Supreme Court Wednesday that he brought leaders of Christian education and fighters for religious liberty together in a Capitol Hill news conference to warn the nation about it.
During the April 28 arguments, U.S. Solicitor-General Donald Verrilli made a statement that has sent chills through religious institutions that support traditional marriage.
It started with what Lee called a "particularly insightful" question from Justice Samuel Alito, one of the most conservative justices.
"In the Bob Jones case, the court held that a college was not entitled to tax-exempt status if it opposed interracial marriage or interracial dating. So would the same apply to a university or a college if it opposed same-sex marriage?" Alito asked.
"It's certainly going to be an issue. I don't deny that. I don't deny that, Justice Alito. It is -- it is going to be an issue," Verrilli replied.
That means the government could start taking tax-exempt status from any college and possibly other non-profit organizations that don't back same-sex marriage.
Travis Weber, director of the Family Research Council's Center for Religious Liberty, takes that possibility very seriously.
"If he's admitting this, they're considering it - if not already decided - to proceed along those lines," he warned.
Could this actually kill some Christian colleges?
"I do think there's a very real possibility of it," said Dr. Keith Wiebe, president of the American Association of Christian Schools. "I think the impact will be significant."
At his Union University in Tennessee, President Dub Oliver says government taking away all the federal benefits enjoyed by the college and its students these days could affect about a third of the funding.
"When you add all of that up, it's about $30 million a year, and our budget is about $90 million. So that's a massive, massive hit," Oliver told CBN News.
Weber suggests government will even feel it's doing the right thing attacking these institutions.
"The government wants to stigmatize them as backwards and somehow out of touch," he explained.
But Weber argued this is particularly noxious considering "many, many, many people across the United States both these school representatives and others who hold to the orthodox view of Christianity, which says that sexual relations are reserved for a marriage between a man and a woman."
The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule this month on whether or not to legalize same-sex marriage nationwide.
Meanwhile, Sen. Lee is proposing a bill that would forbid government from punishing such opponents of gay marriage.
"We need to draw lines around the power of government," Lee stated, "lines that are there to protect the people from the overpowering influence of government, an overpowering influence that can from time to time trample on religious freedom."
