A Christian college in Massachusetts requested the freedom
to live out its ideals, and since some powerful people don’t share those ideals
they’re set to destroy Gordon College—unless it agrees to retreat to the
closet. In June, Gordon’s
president added his name to a public letter
asking President Obama to not force religious organizations into hypocrisy.
Obama plans an executive order that would be the equivalent to many
organizations of forcing Human Rights Campaign to hire adherents of Westboro
Baptist Church. It would force anyone who receives federal funds to hire people
whose sexual conduct disgraces all the world’s major religions.
Gordon, like
every other observant religious institution in the world, does not want to be
forced to hire people that represent the opposite of what it stands for. For
that, it’s been pilloried in the press and persecuted by apparently every local public official who gets morally
high from judging Gordon’s beliefs. It has already lost a contract
with a local town to manage its historic town hall, and its accreditation will
soon be under review—all for merely signing a letter. Gordon is only the
vanguard. There is far more of this ahead, for every religious school, charity,
parachurch organization, and even churches. So it’s time to pay attention to
the tenderhooks of tyranny.
Don’t Take
Federal Money, Even Though It’s Yours. Gordon is at federal mercy, first,
because it takes federal money. Nearly every college receives federal
funds, because the federal government is the nation’s largest sponsor of subprime higher education—meaning, of course, it is by far the
largest provider of student loans,
made freely available without discrimination upon the basis of academic merit
or likelihood of college completion.
This would be
only an economic problem, not an individual liberty problem (besides the tax
extortion), if the feds ever sent people’s tax dollars back to them with no
control measures attached. But they don’t. Control is half the point of getting
it in the first place. It’s a fishing expedition, and you’re the
catch. Although a few other colleges (such as my alma mater, Hillsdale) realized
some time ago that federal money inherently
threatens freedom, most are so hooked they would now have to dissolve if they
did not accept it. Liberty University, for example, of Virginia and Jerry
Falwell fame, regularly makes news for being among the top consumers of federal Pell Grants.
It got a cool $81 million from the feds in 2010-11.
This isn’t just
a college problem. It’s a charity problem, and parachurch problem, as our own
Mollie Hemingway made very clear when discussing the World Vision debacle. It’s even a private K-12 school problem, since private schools can
take federal lunch money (and its accompanying, idiotic regulations), have
their teachers trained by their public school competitors, and more.
Accreditation
May Be Worse. The danger to Gordon’s accreditation, however, may be worse,
because it’s a far less visible instrument of control. Without accreditation,
it’s difficult for an education institution to function, because accreditation
gives the school a license to hand out real diplomas, and for its course
credits to transfer to other institutions. As one might expect, that’s really
important to schools’ customers.
In K-12, states regulate private school curriculum and teacher preparation (aka everything a child learns
and how he learns it) through accreditation. So far accreditors have been
content to demand low academics, Progressive curriculum, and fuzzy teaching methods,
but in the current climate it’s no stretch to think not just the feds but also
some state and private accreditors will demand that private schools condone gay
sex. In higher education, accreditation is also a hoop schools have to jump
through to get federal funds, but even worse, the feds are directly involved in determining what hoops a school has to jump through to
get accredited. So even if a school did not receive federal funds, it could be
pressured on myriad fronts by the federal government or anyone else with power
and an agenda through its accreditation agency. Such are the dangers of
centralizing power, and allowing the government to do what private individuals
and coalitions can manage much better themselves. It hands tyrants tools for
oppression.
President Obama
is clearly aware of the federal power over accreditation—he’s proposed changes to the accreditation process that involve more intimate data-collection on students,
among other things. Since government-regulated accreditation does essentially nothing to improve school quality and is therefore a giant exercise
in providing sustenance for the mosquito-like bureaucracy, and now a tool for
potential religious discrimination, it’s time to abolish it.
Back to Gordon
College, however. It is now excruciatingly clear we live in a time where some
people who have political power are on a crusade against people who, in their
view, commit moral thoughtcrime. A religious college loses all reason for
existence if it must conform to a diametrically opposite moral code. It makes
no sense for a school to hire teachers to teach children, among other things,
that sex belongs in marriage between a man and woman, if that very teacher’s
actions negate his or her words. Such a teacher must either lie to children, or
the school must. (Perhaps the entire goal is to expose children to such forced
hypocrisy.) If a religious school cannot act as a religious school, it
logically cannot exist. It can only shift its morality to match that of its
oppressors, or dissolve. That may be the
point.
Source: http://thefederalist.com/2014/07/18/whats-happening-to-gordon-college-is-just-the-beginning/
Comments
It’s time to get the federal government out of the
Education business, repeal legislation and close the US Department of
Education. Then the U.S. Congress should
pass a law reversing the Supreme Court’s ruling on church and state, restoring
the accurate meaning to “Congress shall establish no religion”. Accreditation should be voluntary or
abolished. Current text books filled
with propaganda should be scrapped.
Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader
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