University wins the right to ban gay students
The ban also includes unwed mothers, pregnant women and those who have had abortions.
Carson-Newman University – a private college in Tennessee – has won the legal right to ban students based on their “lifestyle”.
This means the college can turn away any applicants who are seen as an “affront Christian philosophy”.
“This is who we are as a Christian university,” Dr. Randall O’Brien – president of the university – told WVLT following the move.
“These are our religious principles. And in a changing world, we would like to reaffirm that this is who we are and who we intend to be.”
The college’s new “strengthened” rights also gives them ability to ban unwed mothers, women who’ve had abortions and even pregnant students.
Sadly, the college are not alone in the move, as their legal team have won the right for a further thirty institutions, according to WVLT.
Earlier this year, a group of students from another US university refused to read a graphic novel over its gay themes.
First year students at Duke University were given Alison Bechdel’s ‘Fun Home’ as summer reading.
The book, published in 2006, is an autobiographical exploration of Bechdel coming to terms with being gay, and also of her father, who was in the closet.
The students, from the Duke class of 2019, refused to read it, citing the graphic novel’s use of nudity, and because of sexual themes.
However, some religious universities are beginning to move in the opposite direction in relation to LGBT rights.
In Texas, Baylor University – the largest Baptist university in the world – eliminated “homosexual acts” from its sexual misconduct code back in July.
The policy for the conservative college included bans on sexual assault, adultery, incest, fornication, sexual harassment and sexual abuse.
While the Baylor policy change was first acknowledged by university officials in November 2013, it was finally passed as official in May 2015.
The proposition was originally presented by Trenton Garza, a university student in 2013, but was vetoed by the president of the student body.
