WHO YOU ARE, AND WHO YOU THINK YOU ARE: Eugene Volokh focused on the First Amendment ramifications of this story from the UCLA Lesbian Gay Bisexual Campus Resource Center: “Readers of this blog are likely aware that I have no moral objections to homosexuality; and I sympathize with the desire to make students who might be troubled by their sexual orientation feel more comfortable with it. But the Supreme Court’s Establishment Clause caselaw (whether it’s right or wrong) makes clear that government agencies may not endorse any particular religious viewpoint (with a narrow exception for firmly established traditions, see Marsh v. Chambers (1983)), even in the service in the best of public policy goals; see the majority opinion in County of Allegheny v. ACLU (1989)….”

But I’d like to focus on the substance. Whoever put this little religious note up as the university’s official stance on Gay Stuff believes that where there’s a clash between one’s perceived sexual orientation and one’s religious beliefs, sexual orientation naturally trumps.

How come?

Why should a university, addressing (say) gay Christians, Jews, or Muslims, seek to make them more comfortable with their sexual orientation at the expense of their religion rather than vice versa? Why is God expendable but sexual desire necessary?

It seems to me that if we even begin to take the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim religious claims seriously, religious identity trumps family identity, sexual identity, national identity, ethnic loyalty, and pretty much every other identity one could come up with. Love of God is first, and other loves must be sacrificed if they conflict. Better to enter the Kingdom of Heaven missing an eye than to enter Hell with both eyes.

Has UCLA any compelling reason for rejecting this worldview, this relative valuation of loyalties and identities, for its students? Or is this just another expression of elite opinion, to which we are expected to acquiesce if we wish to pass as “shoe“?


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