No Liberty at Liberty

This is pathetic but not surprising:

Liberty University has revoked its recognition of the campus Democratic Party club, saying “we are unable to lend support to a club whose parent organization stands against the moral principles held by” the university.

[...]

Jan Dervish, secretary of the club, and Maria Childress, its staff adviser, said they met with [Vice President of Student Affairs Mark] Hine after the revocation and asked for a further explanation.

“He said it wasn’t us. It was the national Democratic Party,” which the campus club’s constitution supports, Dervish said. The campus club also opposes abortion and supports the traditional view of marriage, Dervish said.

“His bottom line was, ‘You can’t be a Democrat and be a Christian and be a university representative,’” Childress said.

Hine denied saying that.

Meanwhile, I got an email from the McAuliffe campaign saying that Terry "will hold a conference call with Liberty University Democrats" this morning. The McAuliffe campaign email adds, "Liberty University Democrats have campaigned for McAuliffe across the Commonwealth in recent weeks, and were active advocates for Obama in the 2008 presidential election." I just got home so I missed the 10 am call, but I'll be interested to see what came out of it.

UPDATE: Terry just tweeted, "On a conf call with Liberty Univ students who had their Young Dems ch suspended. http://tinyurl.com/LU-Dems We’ve got 2 stand up for them."

UPDATE #2: Mike Signer has put out a statement.

The decision of the Liberty University administration to revoke the recognition of the students' Democratic organization is deeply troubling. It is even more problematic that the school has decided to continue to recognize the campus Republicans.

I'm proud to announce that my campaign has been in close contact with Brian Diaz, the president of the campus Democrats organization and has offered the full resources of my campaign and my staff to support Brian and his fellow students as they work to form a coalition with other area colleges to found the Lynchburg Young Democrats. Together, we can fight this clear violation of the American tradition of the freedom of speech and political organization.

UPDATE #3: See this excellent report by Drew at Dem Bones. Nice job!