Religious Freedom: Belief Police
Tufts University bans-then reinstates-InterVarsity over complaint from bisexual student.
By Randy Bishop | posted 6/12/2000 12:00AM

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"It's wrong that I, as a gay student, was the only one asked what I thought about homosexuality," Catalano tells CT.
Sexual Discrimination?
Members of TCF's senior leaders team responded with a letter denying the charge, saying they were within their religious rights to pick student leaders who conform to the group's beliefs.
They wrote that if a student is "not striving to submit their sexuality to the biblical standard, he or she should not be a leader in [TCF]."
The leaders wrote that they would invite someone into leadership who was homosexual in orientation but did not engage in homosexual sex. On the basis of the complaint and response letter, the Tufts student judiciary decided April 13 to censure TCF for violating the school's anti-discrimination policy.
"It's not an issue of homosexuality," Curtis Chang says. "We would have the exact same response to a heterosexual who would advocate sex outside marriage. This has to do with whether Christian groups will be able to practice their faith without adhering to the ideological views of the current political climate."
Though Catalano differs from Chang on homosexuality, she says she could sign InterVarsity's doctrinal statements. Catalano does not intend to pursue any action against InterVarsity's national organization, saying the Tufts case is "
already much bigger than I ever wanted."
InterVarsity groups have come under fire for years over similar cases. Most recently, groups have been banned or are facing expulsion from Middlebury College in Vermont, Whitman College in Oregon, and Grinnell College in Iowa.
Related Elsewhere
Other news stories on yesterday's decision are available from The Boston Globe, The
The Washington Times, and the
Associated Press.
The Chronicle of Higher Education also has a story, but only members can read it.The best places to find information about the controversy are the
TCF Web site and
Tufts Daily
, the school's newspaper.Earlier news and commentary on the Tufts Christian Fellowship controversy is available from
The Boston Globe,
U.S. News, the
Detroit News, Charles Colson's
Breakpoint radio commentary,
WorldNetDaily,
Conservative News Service, and
The Washington Times.
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