“Mormon Scolded by Christian Group Is At Center of Kansas Law”

It seems to me that the distinction between a group that funds itself and a group that receives government money is crucial here:

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/mormon-scolded-christian-group-center-kansas-law-37703750

Now, you might say, simply being allowed to meet in a room at a public university constitutes a kind of taxpayer subsidy.  I see the point, but I don’t agree.  There seems to me a world of relevant difference between allowing a Republican or Democratic or socialist group (do I repeat myself?) to meet on campus, on the one hand, and actually giving taxpayer money to such a group.

Universities should be places of intellectual diversity and vigorous debate — they often aren’t, but that’s a separate issue — and public universities, in particular, have an obligation to allow wide latitude to the ideas discussed.  (I think there are and ought to be limits: For example, I wouldn’t favor permitting Nazi groups, or the Ku Klux Klan, or clubs advocating genocide to use public university facilities.  Still, fixing precisely where those limits should kick in is more problematic than it might at first seem.)  But public funds should not support groups favoring the religious views of some taxpayers over others.  Such groups have every right to meet on a public campus, but, if they receive tax or tuition money from a government-owned school or institution, discrimination (whether religious or racial) becomes highly problematic.