Of Showers and Shotguns

Marcia Coyle at the Blog of the Legal Times previews the legal firepower getting loaded into Christian Legal Society v. Martinez.

The yet-to-be-scheduled case will be a double-barrel First Amendment shotgun, blasting out of one side Free Exercise Clause and freedom of association arguments, and on the other side Establishment Clause and sexuality discrimination concerns.  Here’s Coyle on the case’s background:

The high court case, Christian Legal Society v. Martinez, asks the justices whether a public university law school with a non-discrimination policy can refuse to fund a religious student group because the group requires its officers and voting members to agree with its core religious beliefs, thereby excluding gay and lesbian students. […]

Last March, the 9th Circuit affirmed a district court ruling in favor of the law school. The three-judge panel, in an unsigned opinion, said, “Hastings imposes an open membership rule on all student groups — all groups must accept all comers as voting members even if those individuals disagree with the mission of the group. The conditions on recognition are therefore viewpoint neutral and reasonable.”

I can’t wait for this case–not only because it will be a Church-and-State blockbuster that will quite directly test F1@1F’s thesis, but also because it will likely take place in April.  And I will gladly trade midnight April Showers for pre-dawn January Frostbite anyday.