Opponents said, “The Religious Funding Exemption bill is a facade to deprive GLBT students of resources to create a safe environment.”
The Texas A&M student senate passed a bill late Wednesday night that would allow students to “opt out of paying student fees that fund university services they disagree with on religious grounds,” reports The Eagle. According to the paper,
The Texas A&M student senate late Wednesday passed a bill aimed at letting students opt out of funding the university’s Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgendered Resource Center on religious grounds.
After three hours of tear-filled testimony and impassioned debate, the senate voted 35-28 to approve the measure to allow students to choose not to pay portions of their student fees to specific university services that conflict with their religious beliefs.
For weeks, the student-led bill had been aimed at defunding the Texas A&M GLBT center, but approximately 24 hours before the final vote,the “GLBT Funding Opt Out Bill” became “The Religious Funding Exemption Bill.” Its scope was broadened, and it did not specifically mention GLBT services.
In 2012 A&M was ranked #1 in Texas and #7 in the nation for most “LGBT-unfriendly” public universities by the Princeton Review, and the debate over “The Religious Funding Exemption Bill” has caused quite a stir on the traditionally conservative campus. The bill will now move on to the student body president, John Claybrook, who told The Eagle that while a veto is always a possibility he is still “mulling the decision.” He said,
I don’t wish students to be disenfranchised with this or anything that this body does because these are students who have a home here and who are cared about by thousands and thousands and thousands of students. The actions by a few should not make them feel like this is not their home.
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If Claybrook does sign the bill, it will then be forwarded to A&M’s President, Chief Financial Officer, System Chancellor, and the regents. However, administrators within A&M’s student affairs and finance divisions have the final say due to the fact that this bill would change the center’s budget.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
Wow, really read that statement by the student body president. It’s so perfectly crafted that it can really be read either way. Somebody has a future in politics.
I am not sure I understand the problem here. I mean college isn’t expensive enough that you are compelled to spend money on things you that you not only get no benefit from, but that violate your fundamental core beliefs. I mean if some portion of my son’s “activity” money goes to support LGBT or GLBT or whatever and I could not save by excluding things that violet his moral beliefs thene he would get not activity fee.
The problem is the selectivity of it. Unless, of course, students will also be able to opt out of funding sports teams, construction projects, and any other club or organization they claim “offends their moral beliefs”.
Somehow I don’t see that happening, do you?
My god this makes me sad. I hope that other students offended then by other things use this as a way to opt out of those other expenses. Good for the goose and all.
Apparently you have to get offended because your particular Sky Wizard disapproves of it. I need to start a religion that is against sports and teachers salaries.