CNA\/EWTN News<\/a>).- Religious students from disadvantaged backgrounds could be most affected by a California bill threatening state-backed student grants to schools that disagree with same-sex marriage and gender ideology.<\/p>\n\u201cThe students become the greatest victims in all of this. Students growing up in your youth groups may say \u2018we want to go to a school that is going to help us learn our faith while earning a degree.\u2019 This bill would not allow that to happen,\u201d said Prof. Kevin Mannoia, chaplain and pastoral ministry professor at Azusa Pacific University.<\/p>\n
The proposed bill S.B. 1146 could have grave financial consequences for these students and their desired schools \u2013 and even lead to some schools\u2019 closure.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey wouldn\u2019t be able to choose these schools because they wouldn\u2019t exist,\u201d Mannoia told CNA Aug. 5.<\/p>\n
Azusa Pacific University is an interdenominational Christian university in California.<\/p>\n
The state legislature there is considering a bill that could require schools to compromise their religious beliefs or face lawsuits and an end to their state grants under the CalGrant program.<\/p>\n
The bill uses language that claims it does not prohibit institutions from various actions, but then immediately says that this purported exemption applies only under certain circumstances.<\/p>\n
For example, only if institutions provide housing or restroom accommodations for students \u201cconsistent with their gender identity\u201d may they reserve housing or restrooms for either male or female students. Institutions may provide separate housing accommodations for married students or students with children only if these accommodations \u201cincludes both married opposite-sex and married same-sex couples.\u201d<\/p>\n
Moral conduct rules and religious practices may only be enforced if they are \u201cuniformly applicable to all students regardless of the student\u2019s sexual orientation or gender identity.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mannoia said he thinks that that the bill has good motives to protect students. But Christian schools are already \u201cdeeply committed\u201d to student safety and opposing hostility and discrimination.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe work very hard at that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The schools are also committed to their religious and moral beliefs, he continued, and this commitment is targeted by the bill.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf a school has such policies that are built on a religious commitment to a lifestyle or a position on marriage or sexual intimacy, then the state could say we are no longer going to provide CalGrants to any institution that discloses this or says they are particularly aligned with that faith system,\u201d Mannoia said.<\/p>\n
Required chapel attendance, required courses in religion and the Bible, student admissions or faculty hiring based on religious identity could be targeted by lawsuits under the proposed law, he said.<\/p>\n
The legislation would \u201ccarve away at the ability of these universities and colleges to operate in a manner that is consistent with their faith values.\u201d<\/p>\n
If the schools will not change their beliefs, they will have to refuse to take CalGrants. The grants allow disadvantaged students to access higher education at a college or university of their choice, including schools consistent with their religious beliefs.<\/p>\n
About 25 percent students at religious schools are CalGrant recipients. Among these students, about 80 percent come from disadvantaged populations. At some schools, as many as 40-45 percent of the student body is on CalGrants.<\/p>\n
Some schools might not be financially sustainable without taking CalGrant students.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy hunch is that we would probably see a few schools that would have to close in the state of California,\u201d Mannoia said. \u201cCertainly all the faith-based institutions would have to realign their priorities in an effort to replace that money.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said that even if the funds were replaced through other means, the more serious issue in the long term is the religious freedom of those institutions to govern and hire in a way consistent with their faith.<\/p>\n
This ability \u201cis in jeopardy and becomes exposed to public liability.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mannoia said that supporters of the colleges and university should contact the California legislature to object to the bill.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is not a time for the Church to become vitriolic or antagonistic. It is not a time to bash any group in our culture at all in an attempt to defeat it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a time for Christian higher education, for faith-based institutions, to tell their stories. This is a time for us to frame this around the big issues of religious freedom, choice of students and access of students to higher education.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n
![](\"https:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/catholicnewsagency\/dailynews?d=yIl2AUoC8zA\")
<\/a>\n<\/div>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~r\/catholicnewsagency\/dailynews\/~4\/OcslWFmjUBQ\")
<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sacramento, Calif., Aug 8, 2016 \/ 06:07 pm (CNA\/EWTN News).- Religious students from disadvantaged backgrounds could be most affected by a California bill threatening state-backed student grants to schools that disagree with same-sex marriage and gende…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1031,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-us"],"yoast_head":"\n
This California bill could hurt poor students at religious schools<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Sacramento, Calif., Aug 8, 2016 \/ 06:07 pm (CNA\/EWTN News).- Religious students from disadvantaged backgrounds could be most affected by a California bill threatening state-backed student grants to schools that disagree with same-sex marriage and gende...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/2016\/08\/this-california-bill-could-hurt-poor-students-at-religious-schools\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"This California bill could hurt poor students at religious schools\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Sacramento, Calif., Aug 8, 2016 \/ 06:07 pm (CNA\/EWTN News).- Religious students from disadvantaged backgrounds could be most affected by a California bill threatening state-backed student grants to schools that disagree with same-sex marriage and gende...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/2016\/08\/this-california-bill-could-hurt-poor-students-at-religious-schools\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Catholic News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-08-09T00:07:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/www.catholicnewsagency.com\/images\/size340\/Empty_College_Classroom_Credit_Ryan_Tyler_Smith_via_Flickr_CC_BY_20_CNA_2_4_15.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"CNA Daily News\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"CNA Daily News\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/2016\/08\/this-california-bill-could-hurt-poor-students-at-religious-schools\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/2016\/08\/this-california-bill-could-hurt-poor-students-at-religious-schools\/\",\"name\":\"This California bill could hurt poor students at religious schools\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2016-08-09T00:07:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2016-08-09T00:07:00+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/#\/schema\/person\/35d4bd7addc580050842c844a11575f1\"},\"description\":\"Sacramento, Calif., Aug 8, 2016 \/ 06:07 pm (CNA\/EWTN News).- Religious students from disadvantaged backgrounds could be most affected by a California bill threatening state-backed student grants to schools that disagree with same-sex marriage and gende...\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/2016\/08\/this-california-bill-could-hurt-poor-students-at-religious-schools\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/2016\/08\/this-california-bill-could-hurt-poor-students-at-religious-schools\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/2016\/08\/this-california-bill-could-hurt-poor-students-at-religious-schools\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"This California bill could hurt poor students at religious schools\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/\",\"name\":\"Catholic News\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/#\/schema\/person\/35d4bd7addc580050842c844a11575f1\",\"name\":\"CNA Daily News\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8f1180c7dca7995d4a997aac72a3a88a?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8f1180c7dca7995d4a997aac72a3a88a?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"CNA Daily News\"},\"sameAs\":[\"http:\/\/www.catholicnewsagency.com\/\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/author\/cna-daily-news\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"This California bill could hurt poor students at religious schools","description":"Sacramento, Calif., Aug 8, 2016 \/ 06:07 pm (CNA\/EWTN News).- Religious students from disadvantaged backgrounds could be most affected by a California bill threatening state-backed student grants to schools that disagree with same-sex marriage and gende...","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/2016\/08\/this-california-bill-could-hurt-poor-students-at-religious-schools\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"This California bill could hurt poor students at religious schools","og_description":"Sacramento, Calif., Aug 8, 2016 \/ 06:07 pm (CNA\/EWTN News).- Religious students from disadvantaged backgrounds could be most affected by a California bill threatening state-backed student grants to schools that disagree with same-sex marriage and gende...","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/2016\/08\/this-california-bill-could-hurt-poor-students-at-religious-schools\/","og_site_name":"Catholic News","article_published_time":"2016-08-09T00:07:00+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/www.catholicnewsagency.com\/images\/size340\/Empty_College_Classroom_Credit_Ryan_Tyler_Smith_via_Flickr_CC_BY_20_CNA_2_4_15.jpg"}],"author":"CNA Daily News","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"CNA Daily News","Est. reading time":"4 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/2016\/08\/this-california-bill-could-hurt-poor-students-at-religious-schools\/","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/2016\/08\/this-california-bill-could-hurt-poor-students-at-religious-schools\/","name":"This California bill could hurt poor students at religious schools","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/#website"},"datePublished":"2016-08-09T00:07:00+00:00","dateModified":"2016-08-09T00:07:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/#\/schema\/person\/35d4bd7addc580050842c844a11575f1"},"description":"Sacramento, Calif., Aug 8, 2016 \/ 06:07 pm (CNA\/EWTN News).- Religious students from disadvantaged backgrounds could be most affected by a California bill threatening state-backed student grants to schools that disagree with same-sex marriage and gende...","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/2016\/08\/this-california-bill-could-hurt-poor-students-at-religious-schools\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/2016\/08\/this-california-bill-could-hurt-poor-students-at-religious-schools\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/2016\/08\/this-california-bill-could-hurt-poor-students-at-religious-schools\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"This California bill could hurt poor students at religious schools"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/","name":"Catholic News","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/#\/schema\/person\/35d4bd7addc580050842c844a11575f1","name":"CNA Daily News","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8f1180c7dca7995d4a997aac72a3a88a?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8f1180c7dca7995d4a997aac72a3a88a?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"CNA Daily News"},"sameAs":["http:\/\/www.catholicnewsagency.com\/"],"url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/author\/cna-daily-news\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1031"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15416"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15416\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![](\"https:\/\/www.catholicnewsagency.com\/images\/size340\/Empty_College_Classroom_Credit_Ryan_Tyler_Smith_via_Flickr_CC_BY_20_CNA_2_4_15.jpg\"){kind=spacer}
<\/p>\n