Posted on 04/20/2021 7:55:10 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
A Missouri Christian university is suing the Biden administration over a federal directive that its lawsuit claims requires religious schools to open their dormitories and showers based on "gender identity.”
The College of the Ozarks, a four-year liberal arts college in Point Lookout, filed a lawsuit in response to a February order from the Department of Housing and Urban Development that forces any entities that receive federal dollars covered by the Fair Housing Act to place transgender-identified biological males into female dormitories and assign them as females’ roommates.
The lawsuit argues that the rule forces religious schools to violate their religious beliefs and states that the order was issued "without notice or the opportunity for public comment." The lawsuit contends that the policy was issued without considering alternative policies that "respect the interests of private religious colleges."
Representing the school is the legal nonprofit Alliance Defending Freedom, which argues that the directive violates both women's sex-based rights and the school's religious liberties.
“The government cannot and should not force schools to open girls’ dorms to males based on its politically motivated and inappropriate redefinition of ‘sex,’” ADF senior counsel Julie Marie Blake said in a statement.
“Women shouldn’t be forced to share private spaces — including showers and dorm rooms — with males, and religious schools shouldn’t be punished simply because of their beliefs about marriage and biological sex. Government overreach by the Biden administration continues to victimize women, girls, and people of faith by gutting their legal protections, and it must be stopped.”
The federal order instructs “organizations and agencies that receive grants through HUD’s Fair Housing Initiative Program (FHIP), in carrying out activities under these grant agreements, must interpret sex discrimination under the Fair Housing Act to include discrimination because of sexual orientation and gender identity.”
Violators of this directive will potentially face fines and punitive damages.
The lawsuit was filed in the southern division of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri.
College of the Ozarks President Jerry C. Davis believes the Biden administration's action constitutes a violation of the most basic freedoms outlined in the founding documents of the United States.
“Religious freedom is under attack in America, and we won’t stand on the sidelines and watch,” Davis in a statement.
“To threaten religious freedom is to threaten America itself. College of the Ozarks will not allow politicians to erode this essential American right or the ideals that shaped America’s founding.”
College of the Ozarks is colloquially known as "Hard Work U" as all students work while they are students on campus and receive tuition-free four-year degrees.
In a statement on its website about the lawsuit, the liberal arts college said that it "holds to the Christian belief that biological sex is not changeable, and it operates its dorms accordingly."
"The College’s sincerely held religious beliefs influence their policies, including dormitory policies, which prohibit male students from living in female residence halls, and vice versa."
Commenting on the lawsuit on Twitter Friday, evangelist Franklin Graham praised the school for its "bold stand" and asked, "Can you believe this government overreach?"
The HUD directive that reinterprets "sex" to include gender identity follows the Biden administration's executive order signed on his first day in office — "Preventing and Combating Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity or Sexual Orientation" — which directed federal agencies within 100 days to adjust their policies to do likewise.
The Jan. 20 order cited the 2020 U.S. Supreme Court ruling Bostock v. Clayton County, which held that firing someone on the basis of "transgender status" was a form of sex discrimination that is prohibited under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, the section pertaining to employment. The high court ruled only on workplace discrimination and did not speak to other areas of public policy, such as housing or education.
America’s fake, printed, fiat money is not only corrupting our economy, its corrupting society. Fed.gov and our central bank can effectively issue debt and print money at will -- and then turn around and force 1000 different leftist social engineering schemes down America’s throat.
Oh, no! Where am I?
This is where the wheat get separated from the chaff, folks.
RE: “... filed a lawsuit in response to a February order from the Department of Housing and Urban Development that forces any entities that receive federal dollars covered by the Fair Housing Act”
An therein lies the problem. That is why it is a BAD IDEA for schools (Especially Christian and Religious schools ) to receive ANY Federal Dollars. With this you are held hostage to rules that might CONFLICT with your deeply held religious beliefs.
Grove City College realized this a long time ago and refused to accept any Federal Money ( This college is thriving ). Hillsdale College is the other college that comes to mind.
“that forces any entities that receive federal dollars”
Well, there you go. You can’t serve two masters, so choose one.
Is a Federal student loan considered having the government give to the school, or to the student?
Yep, the key is “receive federal dollars.”
So far, if you don’t do that, you are off the federal hook. But for how long?
“Christian university sues to block HUD order forcing male student placement in female dorms”
The Army of Satan continues it’s attack on Christians.
If Christians cannot receive government money without strings attached then Christians should not be forced to pay the taxes that the government uses to pay out that money. The government has no money that it does not first get from the people.
Old phrase: Lie down with dogs, get up with fleas.
Any organization that relies on government money isn’t really a private organization. Colleges are probably the worst offenders: public money for private benefit.
The unfortunate truth is that a lot of these organizations are little more than taxpayer-funded rackets. Catholic Charities, for example, lost a landmark court case in California a few years back involving state regulations somewhat similar to what is described in this article. Remarkably, I found myself in total agreement with the court in that California case -- because the evidence in the case demonstrated that Catholic Charities is not a religious organization at all. Two key pieces of evidence cited by the court that stick in my mind include: (1) the organization gets something like two-thirds of its revenue from government grants, and (2) the organization has no religious requirement for its leadership positions.
I would point out, however, that the "private benefit" you cite is not what you think it is.
Financial aid and loan guarantees for college students have nothing to do with helping the students themselves. It's all about subsidizing the schools. That's why the government doesn't care if your major is electrical engineering, pre-medicine, or African Lesbian Studies.
Do they have trans-freaks at this university? Why would such people want to study there? Wouldn’t they feel unwelcome? Aren’t the students at this university required to sign some statement of faith? I think such a statement could solve this problem. A student would confirm that he won’t oppose Christian faith and morality while being a student there.
[[Do they have trans-freaks at this university? Why would such people want to study there? Wouldn’t they feel unwelcome?]]
Because they want to force the re.igious organizations to conform to their lack of morals, they want to destroy the institution’s moral code. They Infiltrate religious organizations with this goal in mind. They don’t care about what the school teaches, they simply want to destroy it fro within. We see them attempting it all the time
“Why would such people want to study there?”
For the same reason they keep harassing that poor baker in CO. It has nothing to do with needing a cake. It is about forcing people to act against their beliefs.
I don’t think that counts, but there are some federal student loans that are actually administered by the school, so that may be different.
Yes, but the Christian population is not. If my tax dollars cannot go to Christian organizations on an equal basis as non-Christian organizations without being forced to promote anti-Christian ideology, then as a Christian I should not be forced to pay those taxes.
FR: Never Accept the Premise of Your Opponent’s Argument
Patriots are reminded that the states have never given the federal government the specific powers to tax and spend in the name of either INTRAstate schooling or housing, the constitutionally undefined HUD unconstitutional imo.
In fact, President Thomas Jefferson, in a State of the Union address, had used education as an example of a power that the states would first need to amend the Constitution so that Congress could stick its big nose (my words) into intrastate education, the states never amending constitution for that purpose.
"On a few articles of more general and necessary use, the suppression in due season will doubtless be right, but the great mass of the articles on which impost is paid is foreign luxuries, purchased by those only who are rich enough to afford themselves the use of them. Their patriotism would certainly prefer its continuance and application to the great purposes of the public education, roads, rivers, canals, and such other objects of public improvement as it may be thought proper to add to the constitutional enumeration of federal powers [emphases added].”—Thomas Jefferson : Sixth Annual Message to Congress
”From the accepted doctrine that the United States is a government of delegated powers, it follows that those not expressly granted, or reasonably to be implied from such as are conferred, are reserved to the states, or to the people. To forestall any suggestion to the contrary, the Tenth Amendment was adopted. The same proposition, otherwise stated, is that powers not granted are prohibited [emphasis added].” —United States v. Butler, 1936.
Also, Justice Joseph Story had not only likewise indicated that the states have never expressly constitutionally given the feds the specific power to tax and spend for intrastate schooling, but had also indicated that the care of poor people is uniquely a state power issue, not the business of the feds.
"The power to regulate manufactures, not having been confided to congress, they have no more right to act upon it, than they have to interfere with the systems of education, the poor laws, or the road laws, of the states [emphases added]. Congress is empowered to lay taxes for revenue, it is true; but there is no power to encourage, protect, or meddle with manufactures." —Joseph Story, Article 1, Section 8, Clause 1, Commentaries on the Constitution 2
Finally, the only sex-related right that the states have amended the Constitution to expressly protect limits, evidenced by the 19th Amendment, limits the feds to protect sex-related discrimination only in the context of voting rights issues, school dormitories clearly not within the scope of voting rights concerns.
"19th Amendment:The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation [emphasis added]."
As a side note to the fed's very limited powers to make anti-sex discrimination laws, consider that probably most of the Civil Rights act of 1964 and its titles are based on constitutionally nonexistent federal government powers.
Getting back to unconstitutional federal government overreach exemplified by the misguided, fraudulently-elected (imo) Biden Administration, patriots need to primary (2022) federal and state lawmakers who don’t agree to do the following about state powers stolen by the corrupt, post-17th Amendment ratification feds.
When the federal government accuses someone of violating a law, judges and law enforcement officials should be required to do the following.
Judges and law-enforcement officials need to inform the accused of the constitutional clause(s) that arguably justifies the allegedly broken law for further scrutiny of the constitutionality of that law, especially where unconstitutional federal peacetime gun control laws are concerned imo.
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