I regularly see or hear about people with the notion that the right to freedom of speech, as guaranteed by the First Amendment, includes the right to demand that the government endorse you and pay for your advertising, distribution costs, and even your soapbox.

The Associated Press is reporting that a law school student group at a southern Illinois university is suing the university — for failing to provide funding and the official university sanction to their group, which requires members to pledge to adhere to Christian beliefs, including a prohibition against homosexuality. The group can still use campus facilities to meet, they haven't been banned from speaking on campus, but somehow, the fact that this government institution, a taxpayer-funded university, refuses to lend its name and its funding to a religious group means that freedom of speech is being restricted.

This sort of attitude is doubly annoying to me because it is usually accompanied by blatant hypocrisy: almost everyone I have personally seen taking this stance is quite happy to have anyone with differing views be silenced. In this case, I speculate that such a group would react very poorly to the state paying for a pagan club that required its members to adhere to pagan beliefs, or perhaps satanists, admitting only those who swear to their beliefs. I can see the headlines now: "Christian law students protest state-sponsored orgies".

The school isn't named, nor are the members of the student group, which is a pity, because I think the public might want to know which lawyers are about to be heading out into the world with a feeling of religious entitlement and a complete absence of any understanding of the separation of church and state. This is the kind of mindset that, given a few years, will end up protesting campaign finance reform because restricting the rich from completely drowning out the speech of the less wealthy is obviously violating the First Amendment rights of the rich.