New York's Yeshiva University has filed an emergency request that the Supreme Court block a judge's order requiring the school to recognize an LGBTQ student club, Axios has reported.
The Modern Orthodox Jewish school said that a "government-enforced establishment" of the Pride Alliance club would cause "irreparable harm" to students, as well as the community.
The school emphasized in the emergency request that "as a deeply religious Jewish university, Yeshiva cannot comply with that order because doing so would violate its sincere religious beliefs about how to form its undergraduate students in Torah values."
A New York judge, however, ruled that Yeshiva is not a religious institution, as it specifically did not define itself as such in its charter in order to receive public grants and funding, and thus must obey the state’s Human Rights Law and recognize the group, The New York Times reported.
The university decided to turn to the Supreme Court after the New York Court of Appeals refused a motion to review the denial of a stay.
Lawyers representing Yeshiva University insisted that the lower court's order is an unprecedented intrusion into the school's religious beliefs, CNN reported.
Marc Stern, the chief legal counsel for the American Jewish Committee, which has not taken a position on the issue, said that the case reflects "a larger battle about the place for religion in society," the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported.
He emphasized that "the fact that Yeshiva agreed to be secular to get government money cuts in a particular way. If they hadn’t done that, or if this were applied to the rabbinic seminary [affiliated with Yeshiva University], this would be an easier case to resolve."
Brian Freeman ✉
Brian Freeman, a Newsmax writer based in Israel, has more than three decades writing and editing about culture and politics for newspapers, online and television.
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