August 29, 2005 Inside Higher Ed The Christian Legal Society is
a national organization of lawyers and law students. According
to court records, it bars gay people from being members of its
group out of the belief that sexual activity between people of
the same sex violates Christian beliefs. Officials at Southern
Illinois said that the legal society’s rules violated
university, state and federal equal opportunity regulations. But
the appeals court, in granting the injunction, said that the
group’s First Amendment rights were at risk and that the
evidence suggested that the university could not justify the
denial of recognition. The order granting the injunction
criticized the university for not specifying which anti-bias
laws the Christian Legal Society was violating. But even
assuming that there are rules barring discrimination against gay
people, the appeals court suggested that they may be powerless.
The ruling cited the 2000 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court
upholding the right of the Boy Scouts to bar