Campus Christian groups fight for rights; Godparents don’t have to be godly

Campus Christian Groups are fighting for the right to exclude gays and non-Christians, reports Kathleen Murphy in Wednesday’s RNS report: The Christian Legal Society at Arizona State argued that giving gays and non-Christians membership would destroy the group’s purpose, no matter what the university’s nondiscrimination policy might say. So the group sued for an exemption. […]

Campus Christian Groups are fighting for the right to exclude gays and non-Christians, reports Kathleen Murphy in Wednesday’s RNS report: The Christian Legal Society at Arizona State argued that giving gays and non-Christians membership would destroy the group’s purpose, no matter what the university’s nondiscrimination policy might say. So the group sued for an exemption. An out-of-court settlement was reached in September, with Arizona State agreeing to recognize the organization-as long as it limited membership to all students, heterosexual and homosexual, who uphold its religious values on sexuality. Similar battles-pitting students’ constitutional right to religious freedom against public universities’ educational interest in teaching inclusiveness-are being waged across the country. A moment of legal truth may be approaching as three other state schools-the University of California’s Hastings College of Law, Southern Illinois University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill-await decisions in federal courts.

Su-Jin Yim writes about a new trend in choosing godparents that’s more secular and less concerned with the child’s religious upbringing: Jennifer Fuentes believes in God. So does her husband, Tony. But when it came to choosing godparents for their only child, the Portland, Ore., couple, like so many others today, took a more secular approach. Half of the couple they chose is Catholic, as is Fuentes’ husband. But deciding to ask their friends to be godparents to 3 1/2-year-old Mila revolved less around picking a spiritual guide than it did seeking strong role models, Jennifer Fuentes said. In an era when couples choose to be married by friends who “earn” online ordinations and blood relatives sometimes feel as distant as strangers, many parents are thinking less conventionally about whom they want to anoint as their children’s life guides. The traditional role of godparents is steeped in centuries-old religion. People converting to Christianity needed a sponsor to vouch for them, and the practice soon evolved to include babies. Today, many parents are looking to less-religious friends and family members to be godparents.

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