The Human Rights Campaign — America’s largest gay and transgender civil rights group — is celebrating this week’s decision by the U.S. Department of Education to create a searchable database targeting faith-based colleges and universities that have sought exemptions from federal gay and transgender rights regulations because the regulations violate their religious beliefs.
Clearly, the gay rights group commands the immediate attention of the Obama administration. The announcement that the Education Department will now pointedly identify such religious schools comes just a few weeks after the Human Rights Campaign released a Dec. 18 report naming and attempting to shame the schools.
“We have been alarmed by the growing trend of schools quietly seeking the right to discriminate against LGBT students, and not disclosing that information publicly,” Human Rights Campaign president Chad Griffin said in a Tuesday press release lauding the Obama administration’s decision.
“We believe that religious liberty is a bedrock principle of our nation,” Griffin assured on Tuesday. “However,” he firmly added, “faith should never be used as a guise for discrimination.”