|
|
ACLU Doesn’t Tolerate Intolerance 12/1/2004 ACLU threatens suit if school students aren’t forced to watch gay tolerance film.
School officials in Boyd County, Kentucky, face the threat of an ACLU lawsuit if they don’t force all middle and high school students to attend sexual-orientation and gender-identity “tolerance training.”
Meanwhile, a Christian legal organization, the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), has promised to fight for the right of parents to let students opt out of an hour-long tolerance training video.
The story began in 2002, when a group of students at Boyd County High School sought to form a Gay-Straight Alliance club. The school is located in the northeastern corner of Kentucky, a conservative community in coal mining country, close to the borders of Ohio and West Virginia.
After the school denied the request, the ACLU contacted the school in September 2002. In late October 2002, the school’s decision-making council held an emotional hour-long meeting, at which many parents voiced their concerns. In a 3-2 vote, the council approved the club.
The next Monday, nearly half of the school’s 990 students stayed home from classes for one day to protest the decision. Soon thereafter, local ministers organized a protest rally, in which hundreds of persons participated. Members of Citizens for Community Values, a group promoting Judeo-Christian values, urged school officials to set up programs that teach tolerance without approving homosexual activity.
In December 2002, the Board of Education decided to ban all school clubs, an option allowed under the Federal Equal Access Act. The Act requires only that schools treat all non-curricular clubs equally.
The following month, the ACLU brought suit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky. The court heard oral arguments in March 2003. There was evidence indicating that the school district, despite banning all clubs, had allowed certain student groups to continue meeting.
In April 2003, U.S. District Judge David L. Bunting ordered the school district to let the Gay Straight Alliance group meet and use school facilities. After the ruling, school officials and the ACLU entered into a consent decree in which the district agreed to conduct an annual tolerance training session for middle and high school students, with the hour-long video covering sexual orientation and gender identity. The decree failed to include a provision whereby parents could exempt their children from the training session.
What the ACLU hadn’t factored into its plans was the determination of many parents of Boyd County to decide what is best for their children.
In the 10 months since the settlement was reached, 105 of 730 middle school students opted out of the training video, as did 145 of 971 high school students. On the day scheduled for tolerance training, 324 students didn’t show up for school.
James Esseks, litigation director of the ACLU’s Lesbian and Gay Rights Project, argues that parents should not be allowed to exempt their children from tolerance training. According to the Louisville Courier-Journal, Esseks said, “If parents don’t like it they can home school, they can go to a private school, they can go to a religious school.” The ACLU is threatening to take the school district to court a second time if the district doesn’t force all students to attend the tolerance training.
“Once again the ACLU’s intolerance of parental rights and religious convictions belies their hypocritical claim to ‘defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country,’” said Jan LaRue, CWA’s chief counsel.
Strong opposition has been raised by the Defenders Voice, a community group formed to protest the consent decree. Headed by a local minister, the group argues that the ACLU should not be allowed to tell parents what their children must learn.
The ADF recently stepped in to help Defenders Voice, pledging to sue the district unless it adopts an opt-out policy. ADF lawyer Joe Platt stated that mandatory training on tolerance for homosexuals violates the rights of parents and students who believe homosexual activity is immoral.
It is interesting to note that the state of Kentucky allows parents to opt out from school requirements for child immunization based on religious beliefs, yet the Boyd County school district has not allowed a religious exemption from a mandatory pro-homosexual tolerance training session.
In the Boyd County High School dispute, we see an attack on the right of families to guide the moral upbringing of children. Meanwhile, according to the Louisville Courier Journal, the Gay Straight Alliance at Boyd County High has fallen by the wayside due to lack of student involvement.
Anne Downey is a Christian attorney who practices law with her husband in New York state. She is a member of the Christian Legal Society, an Alliance Defense Fund "ally," and is volunteering her services to CWA's Legal Studies Department.
|
|
Concerned Women for America 1015 Fifteenth St. N.W., Suite 1100 Washington, D.C. 20005 Phone: (202) 488-7000 Fax: (202) 488-0806 |
Feedback / Questions? || Problem with this page? || Archives
