Texas A&M student senate passes 'Religious Funding Exemption Bill'

The Texas A&M student senate late Wednesday passed a bill aimed at letting students opt out of funding the university's Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgendered Resource Center on religious grounds.

After three hours of tear-filled testimony and impassioned debate, the senate voted 35-28 to approve the measure to allow students to choose not to pay portions of their student fees to specific university services that conflict with their religious beliefs.

For weeks, the student-led bill had been aimed at defunding the Texas A&M GLBT center, but approximately 24 hours before the final vote,the "GLBT Funding Opt Out Bill" became "The Religious Funding Exemption Bill." Its scope was broadened, and it did not specifically mention GLBT services.

Students, nearly exclusively in opposition to the bill, crammed the sides of the senate chamber and spilled out into the hallway. Overflow viewing areas were set up, and the meeting was postponed several times while administrators cleared paths to the exit.

Many opponents of the measure held signs, such as one reading "We are the Aggies. The Aggies are we."

The debate polarized the traditionally conservative university, which in the 2012 installment of Princeton Review's "LGBT-unfriendly" list topped other Texas schools and was ranked as the seventh least-friendly public university nationwide.

The dialogue was kicked off with a strong message from bill co-author Thomas McNutt.

"I'm just here asking everybody to just chill out and calm down," McNutt told the crowd.

Read more at the Eagle.