Christian School Shuts Down Democratic Party Club

Liberty University, founded by the late Jerry Falwell, has decided to stop recognizing the Democratic Party club at the school “because its parent organization stands against the conservative Christian school’s moral principles.”

Mark Hine, the VP for Student Affairs sent this email to the organization last week:

… Even though this club may not support the more radical planks of the democratic party, the democratic party is still the parent organization of the club on campus. The Democratic Party Platform is contrary to the mission of LU and to Christian doctrine (supports abortion, federal funding of abortion, advocates repeal of the federal Defense of Marriage Act, promotes the “LGBT” agenda, Hate Crimes, which include sexual orientation and gender identity, socialism, etc). The candidates this club supports uphold the Platform and implement it. The candidates supported are directly contrary to the mission of LU. By using LU or Liberty University and Democrat in the name, the two are associated and the goals of both run in opposite directions.

This may put a damper on my long-time goal of beginning Liberty’s first Abortiontastic Nefarious Atheistic Liberals club (ANAL)…

Shutting down this group only adds to the stereotype that Liberty is incapable of teaching students to deal with opposing viewpoints — or viewpoints that may differ from what the Bible says. We already know they can’t handle scientific information. They will change history to fit the Bible instead of working it the other way around. Now they can’t handle students supporting a candidate who may not agree with Liberty’s beliefs on every issue? Frightening.

I have to ask: Is Liberty ever in the news for doing anything good? Or do they solely exist to embarrass themselves?

(Thanks to everyone for the link!)

medussa

Are they aware of ANY irony in the name Liberty University? Liberty?!
I’d like to hear their definition of the word.
beckster

Socialism goes against christian doctrine? I love how they just make shit up. They think they don’t like socialism, so they claim it is against christian doctrine . . .wtf? I guess LU is against those socialist firemen and emt’s! Did the concept of socialism even exist when the bible was pieced together?
PrimeNumbers

The democratic party are hardly socialist by any rational definition of socialism. They, like the Republicans are right of centre.

To shut down such a group goes to the heart of why Liberty is using a 1984 definition of “liberty”.
Sarah

What a ridiculous situation. But maybe something good will come out of it…perhaps an opportunity for some of the club members to engage in critical thinking/questioning authority/etc.???? One can hope…
bigjohn756

Ah, yes, free speech!
Me

Conservative christians ban democratic group.

It’s hard to come up with a more fitting metaphor for religion’s aims. It really is.
Richard Wade

Did the concept of socialism even exist when the bible was pieced together?

I heard there was some dude named John who said, “The man who has two shirts must share with the man who has none, and the man who has food must do the same.”

But don’t pay no mind to him, he sounds like he was some kind of lib’ral anyway.
dfledermaus

The Rachel Maddow Show at MSNBC had a segment on this story and she interviewed the president of the now-defunct Liberty University Democratic Club.
dfledermaus

This may put a damper on my long-time goal of beginning Liberty’s first Abortiontastic Nefarious Atheistic Liberals club (ANAL)…

Q: If this club got started and Liberty University decided to retain it, would that make them ANAL-retentive?

A: Too late. They were already anal-retentive.
Richard Wade

Does LU have tax exempt status? And by defining themselves as so strongly anti-Democratic Party, are they risking losing that status?

Legal eagles?
llewelly

I have to ask: Is Liberty ever in the news for doing anything good? Or do they solely exist to embarrass themselves?

Personally, I think it’s good that ‘Liberty’ University so frequently embarrasses radical christians.
Jeff

It seems that “Liberty University” has neither liberty nor university.
llewelly

This may put a damper on my long-time goal of beginning Liberty’s first Abortiontastic Nefarious Atheistic Liberals club (ANAL)…

You know, this is something I never understood about atheists. Why are so many atheists pro-abortion? Don’t they know an atheist goes hungry every time an abortion occurs?
My2Sense

I am a bit lost in the parenthetical… Is the Democratic Party for “Hate Crimes”? And are “sexual orientation and gender identity” examples of Hate Crimes?

Maybe it’s me, but the whole statement is a laundry list of inclusions which seems to negate any kind of hate crime status.
Epistaxis

The Rachel Maddow Show at MSNBC had a segment on this story and she interviewed the president of the now-defunct Liberty University Democratic Club.

Now that sounds like an interesting person.
Jeannette

I would really love to know about their tax exemption as well. Especially since last year, they blocked people attending Obama’s appearance at a local high school from parking in a nearby lot that LU owns. They claimed that that would indicate support for a political agenda, thus violating their tax exemption. The city ended up busing people in from another part of the city.

Since I live in Lynchburg, I mentioned this to a few of my friends who attend LU, and they were upset about this blatant intolerance too, even though they aren’t democrats themselves.
Jeannette

updates in the local news:
“compromise”

the governor’s appeal
Beth B.

I think the salient point of the decision is not so much that the school no longer recognizes the club, but that it can’t meet on university property wihtout the members incurring a number of “reprimands”, the accumulation of which can eventually cause your expulsion from said venerable institution. Hooray free speech/freedom of assembly!
James Simmons

This is really an eye opener kids. If any of us wonder what the shape of things would be in an American Theocracy here is a hint.

Wow you guys! Intolerance and censorship except on Sunday when we set all that aside and proclaim God’s love for humanity.

Right about now Jesus is rolling His eyes in disbelief.

Someone has his head up his ass and he is probably in a corner office on the second floor of the LU administration building.

I recommend the chancellor (or whomever is responsible for this decision) begin a program of regular sexual exercise once a week (with a member of the opposite sex [not paid for]) and rethink this idea after about six months. In other words… Someone down there needs to get laid and soon.
Sean

There is a reason why this “university” is considered to be a complete joke
Chris

You have it all wrong. Have you read HR1913 ? The bill just passed by the Democratic Party controlled house ? Read it. It criminalizes, yes criminalizes certain speach (verbal or written) if it “offends” certain groups. Good luck with the world your creating, defending the attitude this party has. Thomas Jefferson who founded this party was worried about it… and for good reason… or haven’t you studied REAL history. The students are paying for this education, let the school alone… live and let live right …. or don’t you REALLY believe that when it applies to Christian minded people. Hope I didn’t offend anyone writing this, I woundn’t want to spend my life in PRISON !
dawkinswatch

As a christian I am against Falwell whole ministry.

But you have to say that some christian unions have been shut in government run universities in Britain.

Look the christian right is left field , the is a right of association which they are violating, just like I do not suport Pakistan or Atheist China shutting churces, I equally abore these moves.
Tom

Pathetic though this behaviour is, I think I’m right in saying that, as a private organisation, they’re allowed to do this (though I suppose you might be able to get them on a count of false advertising, calling themselves “liberty university” whilst suppressing all non-conformity). Even if they weren’t, however, anyone who’d bothered to learn anything at all about LU and its operators before attending should have realised that if they tried to pursue any activity even slightly out of line with that organisation’s views, let alone (shock!) liberalism, LU would crush them.
Jodie

Hemant, I see a new rallying cry for Liberty, “Give us ANAL or give us death!”
dfledermaus

There is a reason why this “university” is considered to be a complete joke

It’s a complete joke with 11,000 students and a lot of influence in state and local government.

That’s nothing compared to another joke: Pat Robertson’s Regent University Law School. Over 150 of its graduates (including Monica Goodling) were hired for federal government positions during the Bush administration and some of them are still there. Of course this joke was on the entire country…
Skunque

Well, it’s a private school so they can probably do what they like. If they want to marginalize themselves, I say have at it.
Matthew

Im laughing out of the irony that y’all criticize people for taking a stand on what they believe. We all know damn good and well that if the ACLU wanted to do away with something Conservative in a school, then you wouldnt hear any criticism from the media about that. At least LU’s decision falls within the boundaries of the Constitution, unlike most of the ACLU’s decisions.
Wayne

Amen Matthew
James Simmons

Matthew,

Behind what is going is the innate desire by these University people to insulate themselves from what they don’t like. It’s always in the name of God even though they DO NOT SPEAK for God. If they were in Government they’d try to do the same thing in the name of “protecting” against that which corrupts again in the name of God.

Sure they are using their freedom but they are using it to dictate to others and impose their will on students who are there to LEARN. They do not have the freedom to demand that others think a certain way. We can have temptation removed but only by experiencing it and rejecting, personally, is anything gained. These students are not children in Sunday School but young adults, the next of those who be leaders in our country. When, in the future, there are speeches by conservative Christians who want to get elected to some posting those who are censored now will remember and rightly so. They will remember and so will we how, when they were in school, they were ruled over by some by some American Taliban.

You are wrong about the ACLU friend. They are not anti-conservative as you have heard. They will protect anyone’s right to expression. And, you are wrong about the “media”, most of which is conservative. You listen too much to idiots like Limbaugh and Hannity who delight in stirring up the pot for the enhancement of their personal wealth. You are also wrong if you think that ultra liberal behavior is the standard of the Democratic party. This is the picture which is painted for you who cannot think for yourselves by, again, idiots like Limbaugh and Hannity. They have a reason for doing this and it has nothing to do with FREEDOM but just the opposite.
Brian’s A Wild Downer

Chris, I was just reading over HR1913. Could you show me where it criminalizes offensive speech? I can’t seem to find it.

Also, you put the word “offends” in quotes. I don’t see it used anywhere in the document. What’s your source for this?
James Simmons

Thanks to our God given human rights we are free in this country to piss off Christians who try to demand we follow their narrow beliefs.

Thank God we are a secular nation.
Richard Wade

If our human rights are God given, why did we have to fight human beings to get them, and why do we have to fight human beings every day to keep them, especially those human beings who most fervently believe in God?
alan

“Liberty is incapable of teaching students to deal with opposing viewpoints — or viewpoints that may differ from what the Bible says”

how UTTERLY IGNORANT, as in UBER ASSININE!
AS IF, LU doesn’t teach any apologetics classes.

Maybe it’s YOU who exists to embarras yourself.
James Simmons

Yo Richard Wade,

It is wrong, I think, to think of rights as though they were entitlements. Rather think of rights as freedoms. Now consider that there is no innate knowledge of God in man as he is created and that the freedoms inferred are only apparent when a prompting from God is with us. This is because through the God consciousness, however slight, we become self-conscious. It is the primitive man within who fights and it is the superficial belief in God and what He “wants” which allows violence in His name and for His sake or for the good of all mankind.

There is a tension then, between the high and the low. This is, of course, by divine purpose and it ours to understand, or not. The man who knows of God but who has no understanding of any high purpose is too often fighting for what he believes (God). Those others who have learned a bit more observe but refrain from partaking knowing that to do so is to step backwards…

The LU guy who thinks he is doing the right thing cannot see any further than the end of his/her nose. It’s the kids who are learning to think and function as adults in God who are being harmed, not aborted babies.

In censorship there is no freedom or godliness, nor is there any expression of the Will of God that each of us has the opportunity to personally confront good and evil.
David A

I do believe that we are living in America where we continue (for now) to have the right of freedom of association. Although it does sound as though many of the comments are made by those who are unwilling to extend that freedom to LU simply because what LU believes is contrary to their own POV. Sounds like the Hypocrites are the ones writing in. If you don’t like what LU is doing just walk away and leave them to their own. If more people believe as you do than how they do then they will fall into extinction.

But if you really believe that LU is wrong will you also chastize Obama for removing any image of the name Jesus while speaking at Notre Dame thereby displaying true censorship?