yeah, CCU!

A week ago Thursday the Chronicle of Higher Education and Inside Higher Ed both reported that Colorado Christian University won its federal appeals court case against the Colorado Commission on Higher Education, which had denied CCU access to state funds on the basis that it is "pervasively sectarian." At least one factor in the appeals court's ruling was the distinction the state tried to make between "sectarian" and "pervasively sectarian." These are the kind of public policy decision making practices that deserve to be publicly mocked, preferably involving some form of tar and regurgitated cat hair. Or better yet, we could use feathers. [NB: I am not calling for a person or people to be tarred and feathered but rather decision making practices.]

I applaud the court in arriving at an obviously sensible decision, which is clearly an unbiased way of saying they done good. Too often Christians whine and moan about their tax dollars going to causes they don't support, and this whining and moaning is no more appropriate or deserving of serious public attention when secular (or anti-Christian, if that's the better term in this particular case) groups are raking the muck.

If the government is going to fund art initiatives with public money, I don't think Christian taxpayers can reasonably expect to have a say in which artists get funded and which ones will have to buy their own jars to pee in. But the same goes for education: If the state is going to fund higher education, then secular groups cannot reasonably expect to be able to exclude schools that have otherwise met external accrediting standards from public monies. This is the nature of the public marketplace (of ideas, of funding, and so on): We might not like everyone else sitting at the table (to mix my metaphors here), but neither can we demand to be dealt a hand for us to play while shouting that the ugly guy opposite us shouldn't be allowed to ante.