Gay Support Meetings on Campus OKd : Education: Trustees vote to allow sessions to continue at Fountain Valley High. Nearly 100 people argue the issue before the Huntington Beach district board.

After hours of spirited debate before nearly 300 people, trustees of the Huntington Beach Union High School District voted late Tuesday to allow a gay student support group to continue meeting at Fountain Valley High School.

Parents and students, critics and supporters filled the school board meeting room, fiercely debating values and gay rights. Nearly 100 people delivered arguments to the board, ranging from biblical quotations to testimonials about the value of teen-age support groups.

“It’s a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t situation,” said board member Jerry Sullivan, who introduced the motion to allow the club to continue meeting at the school. The vote was 4 to 1, with Trustee Dirk Voss opposed.

Those attending the meeting ranged from Christian conservatives who have called gay support groups part of a national effort “to overhaul straight America,” and gay rights advocates who viewed the vote as a leap forward in fostering understanding of homosexuality.

Under the 1984 federal Equal Access Act, whenever a student group is allowed to meet on campus, other groups must be afforded the same privilege. All but four of Orange County’s 27 school districts have adopted equal-access policies allowing student groups to meet on campus before or after school or at lunchtime.

At the school district meeting, the audience divided like wedding guests, with critics on one side of the room and supporters on the other. A contingent of gay students from the EAGLES Center, a Los Angeles Unified School District program for gay students, filled the front rows.

A 17-year-old girl stood before the board and described herself as a senior who intended to graduate from the EAGLES program.

“I don’t know how anybody can say we’re doing anything wrong,” said Christina Grant. “I am doing very good at EAGLES. I am going to UCLA. . . . My father is a Republican and a Christian and he still loves me,” she said, to the applause and cheers of supporters.

Parent Natalie Ballard said, “I have a gay child and I just came here to say I understand how scary it is to be in school and have no one to support you. I think everyone wants that support.”

Many critics of the equal-access policy laced their comments with religious references.

Ina Brinkmann, wearing an “I Love Jesus” button, presented the trustees with 120 signatures of people opposed to the policy.

“Love is big, but homosexuality is wrong,” she said, pledging to gather hundreds more signatures from her neighborhood.

Voss said earlier Tuesday that he opposes “groups that are sexually oriented that are on our campuses. I don’t feel that it’s appropriate. It clearly violates our state education code . . . standards regarding sexual education. It’s a slap in the face. . . . It clearly undermines the rights of parents to be in control of their kids.”

Public debate has raged since the gay support group known as the Fountain Valley High School Student Alliance began meeting on campus in October.

In past weeks, school district officials and trustees have been deluged with letters and telephone calls from people on both sides of the issue.

Gay activists and gay alumni of Fountain Valley High turned out at a December board meeting and pledged their support for gay students and the equal-access policy. That session was attended by more than 200 people.

Parents and students vehemently opposed to the gay support group, meanwhile, have held demonstrations and charged that allowing the group to meet promotes an immoral lifestyle.