Protecting religious student groups the focus of Kansas Senate proposal

A bill that would protect campus religious student groups that require members to adhere to “sincerely held religious beliefs” will head to the Senate floor.

Colleges would not be able to take action or enforce policies “that would deny a religious student association any benefit” based on the association imposing requirements that leaders or members adhere to.

Senate Bill 175 was approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday.

Senate Vice President Jeff King, R-Independence, drew clear distinctions between this bill and a religion-related bill passed by the Kansas House last year that sparked international controversy. House Bill 2453 would have enabled public- and private-sector workers to refuse to serve same-sex couples based on religious beliefs about marriage.

“This is not 2453. This is not the bill from last year. I have assurances that no one will try to turn it into the bill that we had last year,” King said. “This is a discreet but important issue dealing with religious freedom on campuses.”

King was instrumental in killing last year’s bill and ending the controversy.

He said this bill simply allows religious organizations to ensure that they are led by people who believe in the faith of the group.

“It’s really a religious freedom bill for people of all religions to make sure that these campus organizations are led by people who believe in the faith of the group,” King said.

Equality Kansas, the group that led opposition efforts against last year’s bill, did not find the bill as innocuous.

“This legislation is absolutely insane,” said Tom Witt, the group’s executive director.

He drew a comparison to the University of Oklahoma, where controversy erupted this week after video footage surfaced of a fraternity making a racist chant. “If anybody thinks giving college kids a license to discriminate on the taxpayer dime is a good idea, they just have to look at the University of Oklahoma,” he said.

Sen. Steve Fitzgerald, R-Leavenworth, introduced the bill. He said other states have instituted “all comer” policies for student groups, which has the effect of enabling people to join for the sole purpose of undermining the groups.

“Let’s say you have the Christian Athletes Association, something like that, and for the purposes of hyperbole you have devil worshippers and so they join and they elect the devil worshippers the president of the club and they make a mockery of it,” Fitzgerald said.

When asked about whether this bill would allow campus Christian groups to discriminate against students for being gay, for example, Fitzgerald agreed it was possible. However, he said that this shouldn’t happen because sincere Christians would know that a gay student could benefit from joining.

“It’s like a hospital saying that you can’t come in because you’re sick. It’s silly,” he said.

Vickie Sandell Stangl, president of the Great Plains chapter of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said in an e-mail that "religious clubs can discriminate as freely as they wish, but the state should not be in the business of helping them do so with public fees and forcing KU students to help subsidize their discrimination."

This story was originally published March 11, 2015 at 8:12 PM with the headline "Protecting religious student groups the focus of Kansas Senate proposal."