Well, at least the Seattle Times ran the piece atop A-1.
The topic: Leaders at Seattle Pacific University, an evangelical Christian campus, had sued Washington State Attorney Gen. Bob Ferguson, essentially for interfering with their religious rights.
Bob Ferguson, for those of you who don’t live in Washington state, is an attack dog for the legal and cultural left. This is the guy who went after the owner of Arlene’s Flowers, the florist shop in south-central Washington that faced years of litigation after the owner declined to arrange flowers for a gay friend’s wedding. Ferguson went after owner Barronelle Stutzman like she was the devil incarnate, suing her professionally and personally in a case that bounced back and forth between the Supreme Court and lower courts, finally getting settled late last year.
Sensing they were in his crosshairs, SPU decided to strike first. From the Seattle Times this past Saturday:
Seattle Pacific University has filed suit against state Attorney General Bob Ferguson, charging that his investigation into possible hiring discrimination against LGBTQ+ people violates the school’s constitutionally protected right to religious freedom.
“The attorney general is wielding state power to interfere with the
religious beliefs of a religious university, and a church, whose beliefs he disagrees with,” reads the 22-page complaint, filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Tacoma.Ferguson fired back in a Friday statement that SPU’s lawsuit “demonstrates that the university believes it is above the law to such an extraordinary degree that it is shielded from answering basic questions from my office regarding the university’s compliance with state law.”
SPU has been in the news recently because of a large group of students who’ve been holding a sit-in on campus this past spring to protest the school’s refusal to hire actively gay faculty. The school’s policy is that employees must confine their sexual activity within heterosexual marriage, thus honoring the school’s doctrinal statement of identity.
In a militantly secular and pro-gay city like Seattle, that’s an open declaration of war. The fact that SPU is a private religious institution that should be allowed to defend its belief system never comes across in the articles I’ve been reading about this controversy. (And we’re not talking just about Christian belief systems at stake either; here is a Muslim defense of traditional sexual mores vs. LGBTQ doctrines.)
Anyway, some of these student demonstrators contacted Ferguson’s office and the attorney general sent missives to SPU asking for a massive amount of paperwork to be sent his way. Back to the Times:
Ferguson’s office said it needs a wealth of information, including every instance in which the university has applied its LGBTQ+ policies in decisions around hiring, promoting, disciplining and terminating faculty and staff. The office also requested the names and contact information of people to whom those policies had been applied, as well as job descriptions of every position at the school.
That’s an overly broad demand for confidential and private information, said Lori Windham, an attorney with The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a nonprofit based in Washington, D.C.
SPU’s fight with Ferguson’s covered several news organizations and my one complaint is that reporters generally did not explain — the facts are easy to find — how militant Ferguson can get.
On page 13 of the claim, the university’s legal team states something very telling: “The attorney general aggressively and selectively prosecutes claims of religious discrimination by religious individuals and entities, arguing that they are not protected by the state or federal Constitutions.”
By the way, the Seattle Times has the lawsuit embedded in its July 30 piece, so be sure to read the whole thing. The university accuses Ferguson of targeting SPU for ruin basically because he feels like it.
I’m finding that media are already characterizing the whole affair as a university crushing its gay populace with headlines like the Chronicle of Higher Education stating “A Private University Drew a State Investigation for its anti-LGBTQ Policy. So it’s Suing.”
Never mind that SPU is only mirroring the established beliefs of multiple religions on sexual morality issues over the last few thousand years. Now that is “anti-LGBTQ,” period. Here is a parallel question: Does a liberal private school have a right to enforce the clearly stated teachings that serve as the foundation for its work?
Another misunderstanding comes up in an earlier Seattle Times piece. It reads:
Ahead of the trustees meeting last month, the school’s church affiliate, Free Methodist Church USA, warned that should the school remove its “Employee Lifestyle Expectations,” it would lose its church affiliation. But the church doesn’t have any legal oversight or ownership over the school or its property — the governance of the school lies exclusively with the trustees.
The reporter doesn’t understand that while the Free Methodists can’t tell the school what to do or not to do, they can — by removing their affiliation — discourage prospective students from coming. (A personal aside: That was a huge issue at a Southern Baptist school I once taught at. Folks were afraid that if the campus got tarred with a liberal brush in any way, Baptist parents and churches wouldn’t send their kids there. That sort of fear is a big issue and something the reporter should have included in the story.)
What’s ironic in it all is that in evangelical circles, SPU is considered to be on the liberal end. They’ve been bending over backwards on the diversity issue for several years and they tolerate open discussion on issues that many other Christian universities would force off campus.
If you read the lawsuit, the school is saying that it has the right to hire people who share its religious beliefs, which include a traditional Christian view of sexual morality.
Some media reports misinterpret this to say the university doesn’t consider gay people to be Christians. The university isn’t making statements about who is or is not a believer; the university is choosing to hire people whose faith leads them to follow a certain set of moral precepts on human sexuality. SPU leaders are attempting to defend the religious teachings that define the school.
That finer point is getting lost in the discussion but it’s the fulcrum of the argument.
Here is another key element of this story, as noted in a new Religion News Service story: “Washington state confirms probe into Seattle Pacific University’s LGBTQ hiring practices.”
The bottom line: The state is backing one side of a theological debate INSIDE the SPU community, thus arguing that the government can use the legal power of the state to settle an argument about issues of scripture and tradition.
This will be a crucial church-state issue if and when this case reaches a high court. Here is a key part of that RNS report:
The attorney general said numerous Seattle Pacific University students, faculty and others reached out to his office to file complaints or to express “deep concern” that the university administration’s policies illegally violate Washingtonians’ civil rights.
At issue is the school’s employee lifestyle expectation policy that states, in part, that “employees are expected to refrain from sexual behavior that is inconsistent with the University’s understanding of Biblical standards, including cohabitation, extramarital sexual activity, and same-sex sexual activity.” …
A collective of students, alumni, faculty and staff applauded the attorney general’s investigation in a July 28 statement, declaring the “school must be held accountable for its stance to maintain harmful employment policies.” They’re planning to sue the board of trustees and has raised nearly $40,000 through GoFundMe to cover legal costs.
We haven’t heard the last of this case by a long shot.
My concern is that those reporting on this be clear as to what the real issues are. By calling in Ferguson, the students went for maximum damage and the attorney general obviously sees public-relations gold in it all. The school says Ferguson is trampling on every conceivable constitutional protection of religion, free speech, freedom of association and more.
Don’t go for the obvious story lines, folks. Look for what’s going on underneath the surface because believe me, there’s a lot. It’s crucial to talk to experienced church-state experts on both sides of this debate.