Gay Clubs Bring School Use Debate Back Into Spotlight

The barring of a gay-themed student club from El Modena High School this week places an Orange County school board at the center of a resurgent national debate over who can use public school grounds.

At a time of explosive growth in support groups for gay teenagers across the country, the debate in Orange and elsewhere echoes battles by religious organizations 15 years ago to win the right for student prayer and Bible clubs to meet at school.

That campaign resulted in the landmark 1984 federal Equal Access Act, upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1990, which prohibits school districts from choosing which non-curricular student groups are allowed to meet on campus.

Now, riding a wave of gay activism by high school students nationwide, the same law is being invoked to force school districts to make room for gay-themed student clubs that often are opposed by conservative religious groups.

This growing demand for access by gay-themed clubs has thrown some school boards into turmoil as they try to balance anti-gay viewpoints against what many legal scholars say is a clear-cut law.

In some places, such as Salt Lake City, school boards excluded all non-curricular clubs rather than open their doors to gay groups.

In Orange, school trustees said they barred the Gay-Straight Alliance because it would deal with sex education--a topic they said should be addressed by teachers in the classroom. But the issue also touches on deeper, more emotional concerns among some parents over what they say is a gay agenda seeping into public education.

“It concerns me very much that the issue of sexual orientation is coming into the club arena,” parent Donna Sigalas told Orange Unified School District board members before Tuesday’s vote to reject the club’s application. “AIDS. That’s our concern. Health. We don’t want our children exposed to this.”

Similar battles have cropped up from coast to coast. Earlier this year, the Manchester, N.H., school board overruled a principal’s ban on a gay-themed club after students sued the district.

In Salt Lake City last week, a judge dismissed students’ request for an injunction after school officials reaffirmed student rights to discuss gay topics. That school policy statement cleared the way for students to resurrect an application to form a gay studies club as a curriculum-related organization. El Modena students in Orange, with the backing of two national civil rights groups, are also turning to the courts seeking access under the federal law.

“We are not giving up,” said club organizer Anthony Colin, 15. “The vote went the wrong way, so we’ll do the right thing” by continuing the legal challenge.

Gay-Affiliated Clubs Increasing

The number of such groups seeking affiliation with the New York-based Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network has mushroomed over the last two years from about 100 to nearly 600, a spokesman said.

“More often than not what these clubs do is create a place where these kids can come together and talk about issues that they are faced with, and work on ways of countering homophobia in the school,” said Jim Anderson, a spokesman for the network.

The Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund says there are half a dozen such clubs in Southern California.

“Kids weren’t gay 10 years ago; we didn’t let them be,” said Anthony Scariano, an Illinois attorney and board member of the National School Boards Assn.’s Council of School Attorneys. “Not to be flippant, but schools only address questions that come to their front door. These kids didn’t come to the front door 10 years ago.”

Scariano, who represents 200 school districts, mostly in Illinois, said school legal questions over sexual orientation “are growing geometrically every day” and touch on subjects ranging from partnership benefits for employees to same-sex prom couples.

“The [Orange Unified] district has an uphill battle here,” Scariano said. “The bigger question is what public policy interest is there . . . to bar students from coming together for support services? If a judge asks me that [as a lawyer], what am I going to say? That it looks like we’re championing the gay lifestyle? Not any more than allowing the Future Homemakers of America is encouraging the spinning of wool.”

Randy Thomasson, executive director of the Campaign for California Families in Sacramento, applauded Tuesday’s 7-0 vote by the Orange school board rejecting the Gay-Straight Alliance’s request to meet at El Modena.

“I’m happy that the parents know that their children are going to be protected from gay indoctrination,” Thomasson said. “That’s not why parents send their kids to school. They want kids to learn reading, writing and arithmetic, not to be subjected to controversial social engineering.”

In rejecting the El Modena application, Orange trustees said the Equal Access Act did not apply because the club would deal with curricular issues of sexuality, which falls under state education code rules on who can teach the subject and what they can include.

“The school board is in the position of having to represent the interests of everyone in the community,” said Los Angeles attorney James Bowles, who advised the Orange board. “The people in the community have different viewpoints. The school board is trying to do what’s best for everyone involved and to follow the law.”

Bowles said the board decision did not preclude the students from reapplying to form a group focusing on general issues of tolerance.

A lawyer for the students dismissed the board’s reasoning.

“You can’t exclude on the basis of what they want to talk about,” said Jon Davidson, supervising attorney for the Lambda Legal Defense Fund’s Western region. “To the extent that California law applies at all, it’s superseded by federal law. They’re grasping at straws to keep the students from meeting.”

Trustees also sought to portray the student group as being controlled by outsiders, which they said would remove it from the law’s protections.

However, the students say that the group is designed to address homophobia, tolerance and the emotional difficulties of coming to terms with their sexual orientation. Outside groups became involved only after the trustees balked at approving the club, they said.

While barred from the campus, up to a dozen El Modena students have been meeting as the Gay-Straight Alliance across from the school. More than 50 students signed a petition saying that they were interested in joining the group.

The irony that using the Equal Access Act, which was backed by religious groups, to force schools to make room for gay clubs was not lost on some activists.

“I say, hurray for the 1st Amendment,” said David Elliot, spokesman for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force in Washington.

He said the surge in gay-themed student clubs stems from an increase in the number of teenagers who are publicly recognizing their sexual orientation at younger ages.

“People are coming out of the closet at an earlier age,” Elliot said, adding that increasing numbers of teenagers are participating in summer organizing and leadership camps sponsored by various groups. “Not only are the kids getting younger and younger, but they’re getting smarter and smarter, and becoming better organized. And they’re demanding their rights. If there are Christian clubs, chess clubs, German clubs, then they have the right to a gay-straight alliance.”

In some schools, gay clubs have generated no controversy. A gay-themed club with gay and straight members has existed on the campus of Los Alamitos High School for six years, said club advisor Michael Poff, an English and journalism teacher.

He described the group, which meets weekly, as a social and service-oriented group.

“They talk about movies and what they did over the weekend,” Poff said. “Sometimes they get on the subject of parents or how they’re treated. These are things all adolescents talk about when they get together.

“Of course they don’t talk about sex at all, in any form, any more than the French Club does.”

Times correspondent Marissa Espino contributed to this story.