SCOTUS: Free Association Less Important than Homosexuality

That's the gist of the high court's decision in the Christian Legal Society's case against the University of California. The case pitted the idea of freedom of religion versus a school's right to allow such organizations on campus.

The court bizarrely came down on the side of the school, saying that your First Amendment right of free association is less important than someone who doesn't adhere to your beliefs joining your organization.

But the high court ruled, 5-4, that the policy is a "reasonable and viewpoint-neutral" condition placed on becoming a recognized group, which entitles organizations to certain funding and access to campus facilities. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg noted that the religious group is free to exclude nonadherents if it forgoes recognized status. "Hastings ... is dangling the carrot of subsidy, not wielding the stick of prohibition," Ginsburg wrote. She dismissed concerns voiced by the society that the policy would encourage "hostile takeovers" of groups like theirs by nonadherents whose aim is sabotage. "This supposition strikes us as more hypothetical than real," she wrote. "Students tend to self-sort."

If this interpretation is correct, we can expect the University of California to allow skinheads to take over college black and Hispanic student groups with impunity.

Where Diversity Leads

Students want ‘Our Lord' phrase off diplomas

A group of students at Trinity University is lobbying trustees to drop a reference to “Our Lord” on their diplomas, arguing it does not respect the diversity of religions on campus.

“A diploma is a very personal item, and people want to proudly display it in their offices and homes,” said Sidra Qureshi, president of Trinity Diversity Connection. “By having the phrase ‘In the Year of Our Lord,' it is directly referencing Jesus Christ, and not everyone believes in Jesus Christ.”

Qureshi, who is Muslim, has led the charge to tweak the wording, winning support from student government and a campus commencement committee. Trustees are expected to consider the students' request at a May board meeting.

Trinity University was founded by the Presbyterians in 1869. Maybe "Our Lord" can come off the diplomas when the Saudis accept plurality.

Religious Tolerance in the U.K.: Only Burkinis May Swim

In yet another example of religious tolerance in the U.K., some swimming pools are becoming burkini only for women.

British swimming pools are imposing Muslim dress codes in a move described as divisive by Labour MPs.

Under the rules, swimmers – including non-Muslims – are barred from entering the pool in normal swimming attire.

Instead they are told that they must comply with the "modest" code of dress required by Islamic custom, with women covered from the neck to the ankles and men, who swim separately, covered from the navel to the knees.

In the interest of tolerating strict Muslim dress codes, everyone else is encouraged to either (a) stay away or (b) wear the restrictive clothing.

The Death of Diversity

A funny thing happened on the way to the publisher for political scientist Robert Putnam.

His research didn't support his hypothesis.

That isn't earth-shattering; it happens to the best of scientists. What's interesting is that his hypothesis was that diversity made communities more open and better.

What he found was that the more ethnically diverse a community is, "the less likely the residents are to trust anyone--from their next door neighbor to the mayor."

The core message of the research was that, "in the presence of diversity, we hunker down", he said. "We act like turtles. The effect of diversity is worse than had been imagined. And it’s not just that we don’t trust people who are not like us. In diverse communities, we don’t trust people who do look like us."

Prof Putnam found trust was lowest in Los Angeles, "the most diverse human habitation in human history", but his findings also held for rural South Dakota, where "diversity means inviting Swedes to a Norwegians’ picnic".

When the data were adjusted for class, income and other factors, they showed that the more people of different races lived in the same community, the greater the loss of trust. "They don’t trust the local mayor, they don’t trust the local paper, they don’t trust other people and they don’t trust institutions," said Prof Putnam. "The only thing there’s more of is protest marches and TV watching."

I'm not sure I believe that diversity is the reason people don't trust each other so much. I have no scientific evidence to back up my conclusion, but could it be that our attitudes about various groups is affected by television news and entertainment? By other information sources? Could it be that "I vant to be alone" isn't just a Greta Garbo line?

I've lived in some fairly ethnically diverse areas in my life, and I've lived in some rather homogeneous ones, as well. I can't say I trust any of my neighbors now less than I trusted neighbors 20 years ago when I lived in a different area. And I've always had a healthy skepticism when it came to government, local or national.

It would be nice if the outcome of Putnam's study were that all the diversity garbage would go away. It would be terrific if we weren't constantly bombarded with the idea that white people are racists if they don't seem thrilled with diversity, or minorities are just ignorant if they don't embrace other cultures willingly.

But I doubt any of that will happen. Instead, we'll be put through even more diversity training where we'll be told how much more accepting and open we will be if we just expose ourselves to this group or that. Daniel Henninger at the Wall Street Journal's OpinionJournal puts it this way:

The diversity ideologues deserve whatever ill tidings they get. They're the ones who weren't willing to persuade the public of diversity's merits, preferring to turn "diversity" into a political and legal hammer to compel compliance. The conversions were forced conversions. As always, with politics comes pushback. And it never stops.

The harvest of bitter fruit from the diversity wars begun three decades ago across campuses, corporations and newsrooms has made the immigration debate significantly worse. Diversity's advocates gave short shrift to assimilation, indeed arguing that assimilation into the American mainstream was oppressive and coercive. So they demoted assimilation and elevated "differences." Then they took the nation to court. Little wonder the immigration debate is riven with distrust.

We need to accept the idea that assimilation isn't a dirty word; it's the way communities are built. That's why certain communities have certain characteristics. But the United States should have certain characteristics, too, which is why emphasizing our differences--rather than our similarities--tears at our national spirit.