Liberty is wrong

Today's InsideHigherEd.com has a story about Liberty University, which has "withdrawn recognition from its Democratic club," primarily, it sounds like, because of the Democratic Party's stance on abortion and gay marriage. [Liberty has an op-ed response to media coverage of the issue here; I didn't notice any significant discrepancy between Liberty's own account of the events and the piece from InsiderHigherEd.]

Political issues are notoriously complicated, not least moral political issues such as abortion and gay marriage. I often get the impression online and in the media that there is no basis on which a person can legitimately be opposed to gay marriage. Just the belief that marriage ought to be between one man and one woman is labelled "controversial" (for example, the seemingly endless and never-newsworthy saga of Carrie Prejean) even when serious efforts are made to balance one's commitment to traditional values with a belief that all persons deserve respect. Personally, as one with an admittedly conservative political perspective, I am no longer surprised by the vitriol and condemnation that both sides' extremities hurl at one another. But it does amaze me that hatred from one side is covered in the press and hatred from the other is largely ignored. (For example, has this received any national coverage [warning: video contains explicit language] amidst all the declarations of Prejean's affirmation of a traditional view of marriage as "controversial"?)

The political problems facing American society today aren't rooted in either political party, and neither are the solutions. I support Republican candidates more often than I do Democratic ones, but that's like saying I prefer broccoli to kale. I do, but I can't stand either. Liberty University has foolishly given support to the notion that the Republican Party is rooted in traditional Christian values and that evangelical Christians can only support Republican causes in today's political climate. That's a mistake, and traditional Christian moral visions for our society will only suffer and be corrupted and distorted by too close an alignment with either political party.

I don't think any student group—including the Democratic student group—has a right to Liberty's name or their money. And no one, as far as I can tell, is terribly upset that Liberty doesn't have a sanctioned Communist student group [I'm assuming here; if they do please let me know!]. But the prudent course, I would have thought, would have been to officially treat the Republican and Democratic student groups identically, even if faculty and administrators personally feel more closely aligned with the former. The problem, in the end, isn't the treatment of either Republican or Democratic student groups; the problem is the identification of and confusion between biblical and political agenda.