The San Antonio Express-News reported yesterday on what might otherwise be an unremarkable legal decision: a federal court ruled that John Hagee's Cornerstone Christian School was not entitled to pursue its claim that the University Interscholastic League (UIL), an organization for athletes attending taxpayer-funded public schools, denied Cornerstone admission based on religious discrimination.
What was remarkable about Judge Fred Biery's decision was how it used Scripture to show just how hypocritical Cornerstone's effort to join the league was. He titled one section heading "Ironic Background" and compared Hagee's behavior unfavorably to such bible verses as Matthew 23:1 ("Teachers of the law . . .[who] do not practice what they preach.")
The case revolved around an apparent technicality: whether Cornerstone was eligible to join the UIL because its eligibility for membership in another athletic league, the Texas Association of Private and Parochial Schools (TAPPS), had been revoked. The judge found that TAPPS had not revoked Cornerstone's eligibility, but rather that Cornerstone had chosen not to play by TAPPS' rules concerning athlete recruitment and inducement. Cornerstone, the judge concluded, had used financial inducements to recruit athletes from all over the world, with the goal of creating a national basketball powerhouse, in contravention of TAPPS rules. (The purpose of TAPPS is to create a competitive state league for athletes at Texas private and religious schools.) Judge Biery (who earned an undergraduate degree at Texas Lutheran University and a law degree from Southern Methodist University) wrote:
Having successfully created a private athletic powerhouse no longer welcomed by other Christian schools, Cornerstone incongruously invokes the power of the federal government to have its earthly desires accomplished. A cynical believer in human hypocrisy could cite Jeremiah 3:4, Matthew 23:28, Koran 9:73 and Third Nephi 16:10 (Book of Mormon). A secular skeptic might recall the child who said: "But the emperor has no clothes!"
Having not followed the proverb, "Physician, heal yourself" nor having treated others as it would like to be treated, Cornerstone has reaped what it has sown . . . . Just as it would be difficult for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, Cornerstone's effort to enter the UIL is denied.
--Sarah Posner
