Guest Post by Morbo
In previous posts, I’ve noted my belief that the Religious Right’s vociferous anti-gay movement will not stop at state constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage.
They have an agenda far wider than that. I predict battles in the states over issues like gay adoption, gay foster parenting, the right of gays to teach in public schools, gay-themed books in public libraries and a host of others. Some states are already experiencing these.
U.S. Rep. Walter B. Jones (R-N.C.) has already introduced a bill that would require any public schools that accepts federal funds — and that’s all of them — to set up a parental “advisory board” to screen books going into school libraries. Jones is infuriated because a book for young readers called King & King, about two princes who fall in love and get married, popped up in a Wilmington, N.C., public school library.
The Religious Right is also opening up another front of its anti-gay jihad: attempting to roll back public school programs that present homosexuality as anything other than abnormal and dangerous.
Some schools have tolerance programs aimed at eliminating harassment of gay students. Others, in a course of sex education, may teach that being gay is not a sickness and point out that an estimated 10 percent of the population is homosexual.
Aggressive Religious Right groups seek to get rid of all of these programs. They are already enjoying some success, as detailed in a recent New York Times article.
The piece touched briefly on a controversy in Cleveland, Ga., where a small group of high school students was denied the right to form a club promoting understanding between straights and gays. Such Gay-Straight Alliances are meaningful ways for young people to defuse tensions and address anti-gay violence and harassment that plague many schools.
I wish The Times piece had looked at this issue in more detail. It noted that in Cleveland, school officials are adamant that the club would not be formed. Said student Kerry Pacer, “They’re just scared of change. We live in the Bible Belt. Anything that threatens change, people here don’t want that.”
The problem is, school officials in Cleveland, by denying the club the right to exist, are violating a federal law. Someone ought to sue them to high heaven.
What makes this all the more compelling is that the law in question — the federal Equal Access Act of 1984 — was passed due to agitation by conservative religious groups. These organizations, angry over the alleged exclusion of religion from public education, prodded Congress for a federal law that would give high school students the right to form religious clubs that meet during “non-instructional time,” usually defined as after the school day ends.
When it was first proposed, the equal access concept was limited to student religious clubs. The proposed law gave these groups special rights, which made the act legally dubious since it promoted religion. Backers went back to the drawing board and came up with a new idea: If a public high school allows any type of non-curriculum related group to meet, it must allow them all. The only organizations that can be banned are those that present a material disruption to the school (racists, anti-Semites, neo-Nazis, etc.)
The conservatives also reached out to civil libertarians. They presented equal access as a way to bring constitutionally protected forms of religious activity into public schools on a voluntary basis and argued that it might defuse controversies over the role of religion in schools.
Civil libertarians had some concerns at first, but the Equal Access Act, which was upheld by the Supreme Court in an 8-1 vote in 1990, has worked out pretty well. Religious clubs must be student run. They meet after hours. No one is required to attend. Schools cannot sponsor them.
The law works like this: If a public high school allows even one non-curriculum related club to meet, it must allow all others. Let’s say a school has a photography club but teaches no classes that touch on photography. The act is then triggered. Christian clubs can meet. Jewish clubs can meet. Atheist clubs can meet. The Young Republicans can meet. The Young Democrats can meet. The animal-rights club and the meat eaters club can meet as well.
And so can the Gay-Straight Alliance.
Some schools have been resistant to clubs deemed unorthodox. A few years ago, a high school senior in Michigan named Micah White was denied the right to form an atheist club, even thought Christian clubs were meeting at his school. A strongly worded letter from his lawyers to school officials led to a quick reversal of that policy.
Schools do retain the right to ban all non-curriculum related clubs. They can shut down the photography club, the political clubs and all of the others not tied to some aspect of classwork. This is a drastic step. It punishes students and usually meets great resistance from parents. It seems a steep price to pay.
The Equal Access Act was the brainchild of religious conservatives, but any student can use it. Young people should take advantage of the legislation to counter the Religious Right by building organizations that promote a gay-friendly environment in our public high schools.