THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, February 27, 1995 TAG: 9502270040
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY PHILIP WALZER, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 166 lines
Ron Rosenberger, a white Virginian in his mid-20s, sees himself as a modern-day Rosa Parks, the victim of discrimination - not against the color of his skin but against the content of his beliefs.
``As a Christian,'' he said last week, ``I feel like I'm being asked to take a seat in back of the bus.''
He entered the University of Virginia in 1988 and found a blend of ignorance and mockery of religion. So in 1990 he started a magazine, called Wide Awake, to promote Christian views.
The next year, he applied to get aid from the university, which helps finance dozens of student groups. But his request for $5,862 got turned down because the publication was deemed a religious organization. Standard operating procedure for many universities.
``Perhaps what makes me different,'' Rosenberger said, ``is that I'm not rolling over dead.''
He appealed to the university - unsuccessfully. With the aid of lawyers from across the country, he took it to court after court - unsuccessfully. Still, he didn't surrender.
On Wednesday, 2 1/2 years after he left U.Va., Rosenberger is taking Mr. Jefferson's university to the highest court in the land. It's a case that observers say could shift the relationship between government and religion.
Like the school prayer debate, the U.Va. case hinges on the clash between separation of church and state, on one hand, and the demand for equal rights and free expression of religious groups. The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments Wednesday from lawyers for Rosenberger and U.Va. and will issue its decision this year.
Colleges are watching the case - Rosenberger vs. Rector and Visitors of University of Virginia - carefully. ``This could be a wedge for similarly situated groups to launch a campaign for access to student funds,'' said Sheldon Steinbach, general counsel of the American Council on Education.
But the decision could spill into areas far beyond higher education, such as tuition vouchers for religious schools. ``I think this case has tremendous repercussions,'' said Jay Sekulow, chief counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice in Virginia Beach. The center, a nonprofit foundation founded by Pat Robertson, has filed a brief on Rosenberger's behalf.
Colleagues and friends say they're not surprised that Rosenberger, an intense 25-year-old who lives at his parents' home in Northern Virginia, has gone this far in his battle.
``These issues are the issues he's been talking about the whole time I've known him,'' said Greg Mourad, a former editor of Wide Awake who is also a plaintiff in the suit. ``When we all became embroiled, it just seemed appropriate.''
Rosenberger said, ``I'm thrilled in some small way to be a part of history in the making,'' yet a bit uncomfortable squaring off with the school he still loves. ``But it's because I love the University of Virginia so much that I'm concerned about what's happening there.''
Rosenberger, a Protestant, faced culture shock when he went to U.Va. ``Everything my parents taught me to be true, everything my Sunday school taught me to be true, was under attack.''
Campus publications either ignored Christians or mocked them. On gay pride day, students of the same sex hugged and kissed on the Lawn, making fun of Christians who objected. In the classroom, he perceived a double standard: A class on Eastern religions featured a Buddhist guest who was virtually proselytizing students, but the course on Christianity didn't bring in anyone.
To get his views out, he launched Wide Awake - with Mourad, a Presbyterian, and fellow student Rob Prince, a Catholic - in 1990. ``Our goal was to educate the university community about what Christianity is - how it relates to cultural issues, how it is alive in students' lives, how it affects professors,'' Rosenberger said.
The magazine, which has since disbanded, included Christian critiques on racism and homosexuality, a profile of the Irish rock group U2, even a Christian look at eating disorders. Rosenberger had envisioned a monthly, but without money from U.Va., he put out four issues, or about one a semester.
U.Va. distributes about $450,000 a year, collected from a student fee, to more than 120 student groups, spokeswoman Louise Dudley said. University rules ban allocations to religious and political organizations, fraternities or sororities. Guidelines say the fee is to support ``student organizations that are related to the educational purpose of the University of Virginia.''
``The university's position is that in the distribution of funds, choices must inevitably be made,'' said U.Va. law professor John C. Jeffries Jr., who will defend the school before the Supreme Court. ``And the decision not to fund religious activities is entirely reasonable. You never have enough money to go around.''
Furthermore, he said, the case is not an issue of ``free speech.'' U.Va., in fact, allowed Wide Awake to use university space. ``The university does not inhibit its distribution or place any obstacles in its path. All that we do is not pay for it. I think the right of free speech is protected.''
But Sekulow, from the American Center for Law and Justice, said: ``Religious speech or speakers must be treated exactly the same as any other group. The content of their speech should not disqualify them from funding.''
Rosenberger said: ``We're not seeking special rights or special benefits. We are seeking equal access to benefits made available to other students.'' Michael W. McConnell, a University of Chicago professor who will argue his side, could not be reached.
Arguments from both camps have hinged on interpretations of the First Amendment, which prohibits any law ``respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.''
For Jeffries, that means ``a longstanding tradition of the separation of church and state. The notion that government should not be supporting religious activity is an old and honored one.'' The way Rosenberger sees it, U.Va. is in violation because its funding policy ``leads to an environment of hostility towards religion.''
Rosenberger has attracted a predictable array of supporters and opponents - with a few exceptions. The Baptist Joint Committee has filed a brief siding with U.Va., saying that ``subsidizing a religious message amounts to an impermissible advancement of religion.'' And though U.Va. is a state-supported institution, the Virginia Attorney General's Office is backing Rosenberger's rights to ``free speech.''
Since the case takes place at U.Va., Mr. Jefferson often is invoked in support of both sides. The Baptist committee cites his statement that any government effort to aid religion ``tends also to corrupt the principles of that very religion it is meant to encourage.'' But Rosenberger said: ``Jefferson believed the free marketplace of ideas was essential.''
Rosenberger has gone this far without a bachelor's degree from U.Va. He completed all his course work in political and social thought in 1992, but still hasn't finished his thesis on the role of religion in democracy. He says it's because he was tied up with fund-raising for the magazine in 1991-92 and the legal battles since then, but he hopes to get to it soon.
That hasn't stopped Rosenberger from getting work. He has been an assistant to the president of a Washington think tank, the Ethics and Public Policy Center, and a corporate head hunter. Last month, he joined Young America's Foundation in Herndon, which promotes conservative views and speakers on college campuses.
Ron Robinson, the head of the foundation, says Rosenberger is better-rounded than most young adults, perceptive whether the subject is politics or U2, which Rosenberger describes as ``struggling with what it means to be Christian . . . in a thoroughly decadent culture and a thoroughly decadent career.''
Robinson added: ``You don't get seat-of-the-pants answers from him. You get a very thoughtful individual.''
Said Rosenberger: ``I don't take knee-jerk responses. As a Christian, I'm concerned about big business . . . and some of the current leadership both in the Senate and House.'' And he doesn't like distorted sound bites, whether they come from the liberal media or Rush Limbaugh.
``I like to think I'm a careful thinker and, like Jefferson, willing to follow the truth wherever it leads.''
On Wednesday, it will be a courtroom in the U.S. Supreme Court. ILLUSTRATION: JIM WALKER/ [Color] Photo
SOME OF RON ROSENBERGER'S MUSINGS
These are excerpts from issues of Wide Awake from 1991 and 1992:
On the rock group U2: ``The tension between Bono's desire for
communion and fellowship with his Creator and his dislike of
institutional religion, as well as a sense of unworthiness, is
expressed once more in the lines, `Yeah, I'd break bread and wine/If
there was a church I could receive in/'Cos I need it now.' ''
On eating disorders: ``God, as Creator and loving Father, has
instilled us with certain desires and has also provided means for
satisfying them in order that we might enjoy them. . . . Apart from
Christ, we may alter our behavior, but we can do nothing of ultimate
significance.''
On Pope John Paul II's 1991 encyclical: ``By emphasizing the
importance of the free market while at the same time placing it in
its proper context within society, Pope John Paul II is preparing
the Catholic Church well to face the coming decades of a
market-based world economy.''
KEYWORDS: SUPREME COURT RELIGION UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA MAGAZINE
CHRISTIAN by CNB