The Government of the Student Body ruled a bill allocating $12,000 to student organizations out of order last Wednesday because it provided funding for a religious group. The bill contained the finance committee’s recommendation for 23 campus organizations to receive funding, including the Campus Crusade for Christ organization.

This isn’t the first time separation of church and state has been questioned in GSB. Last semester, another religious organization was turned down when they requested funding for a trip.

The difference this time is that the bill may jeopardize the funding of 22 other student organizations, whereas last year only the one in question was effected.

How did another religious organization get past the finance committee?

The GSB bylaws clearly state that organizations funded by GSB may be “neither affiliated with, nor dedicated to a particular religion or religious point of view or otherwise violating the anti-establishment clause of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution as it pertains to the use of state funds.”

Before making the recommendation, the finance committee said they were aware of the clause in the bylaws and had researched Campus Crusade for Christ’s request. Campus Crusade for Christ even met with an individual finance adviser from GSB.

But conflict of interest over the separation of church and state still went unrecognized or was misunderstood by the GSB finance committee.

The whole point of people committing mistakes is for them to hopefully learn from them, and it seems as though GSB has a lot more mistakes to make before they learn.

Changes on the allocation bill should have been made before senators ruled it out of order; now it will take even longer for organizations to receive funding or they may not receiving funding at all.