Religious Funding Exemption Bill

http://www.theeagle.com/news/local/article_adb37b80-87a2-5a5a-beae-45e67d5fa33e.html

I found this article on Twitter after seeing a friend from the University of Texas post this. Immediately after reading this, I was very angry that a university, especially such a large, prestigious university in Texas, would even consider a bill like this. What angered me even more was reading about the bill even further. The bill, which was passed by a Student Government Association at Texas A&M University, is called the "Religious Funding Exemption Bill".

Originally, the bill was going to be called "GLBT Funding Opt Out Bill", and was only changed 24 hours before voting. Basically, the bill says that students have the option to opt out of their tuition money funding the Gay/Lesbian/Bisexual/Transgender organization because it goes against their religious beliefs. After further research of this bill, I found that one student who was for the bill even went so far as to say that they were opting out because the organizations promotes the spread of disease.

This article really bothered me because I think it is a bad reflection on not only the university, but on society in general that there is still so much discrimination against the LGBT community, even though it is something that is very common and should be widely accepted. Reading this article reminded me of two things that we had discussed in class. The first situation was the beating and murder of the gay male that we had talked about in class (I can't remember his name right now). Although what is going on at Texas A&M University is nothing in comparison to what this male experienced, it's things going on in society like this that make people believe it's okay to discriminate against a certain group of people because of their believes. Also, it reminds me of the article we read in the beginning of the semester about civic engagement; about the idea that some people become civically engaged, but for the wrong reasons. This is a great example of it. Although this is a group of people uniting because of something they believe in, it is something that is wrong and offensive to some people. 

This whole bill is ridiculous not only because it is discriminatory  but because in further reserach, I found that student funding for organizations is an extremely small amount, so opting out would not save students a large sum of money at all. Passing this bill would also let students opt out of paying anything they didn't believe is right, such as Greek Life, race related organizations, etc. 

The bill still needs to go through more chains of command in order to be fully put into the Texas A&M system, and I hope it doesn't pass because this only puts society back a few steps regarding LGBT acceptance, in which society is already moving forward way too slowly.