How ironic that the Thorniest Question of the Day was posed this morning by the Blandest Newspaper in Southern California, the Orange County Register. And the Daily Breeze. And the Pasadena Star-News. And the San Gabriel Tribune. And who knows how many more dull newspapers are owned by a dull, faceless conglomerate called the Southern California News Group? The Group is on a kamikaze mission to kill newspaper reader interest between here and San Diego.
A fierce enemy of imagination, the suburbans publish the identical dull editorials each morning. Typically, they may tilt slightly but they seem to try to not lean left or right, defeating a central purpose of editorials.
Out of character today, the dullards asked readers a stimulating question, their opinion of state Sen. Ricardo Lara’s cinch-to-pass Senate Bill 1146, Equity in Higher Education (https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201520160SB1146).
What should happen, whose will should prevail when LGBT students enroll in one of California’s almost 50 religious colleges?
A fair question would be: Why would a gay or transgender student want to attend a religious school where his values and the school’s are bound to clash?
Without addressing that question, the editorial says that sometimes parents choose a campus for their children.
Contemporarily, that defies logic.
At bottom, students who are genetically different, or hold values starkly different from the overwhelming majority of fellow students, want to be treated like the majority.
While that is understandable, is it achievable? Only, it seems to me, if one side (preferably both) is willing to make a concession or two.
Says the editorial: “Long-standing state law exempts educational institutions run by faith-based organizations from anti-discrimination laws that are inconsistent with their religious tenets.”
In a further squeeze, the Lara bill would kill the exemptions for religious colleges that received state financial aid or accepts students who receive state financial aid.