Crude Fliers Plastered Throughout High School

Hundreds of crude fliers seeming to advertise a gay dating service were found Monday plastered across El Modena High School in Orange, where a controversial gay-straight club won a federal court order last week allowing it to meet.

“We believe [the fliers] were shoved in the lockers of every student,” said Judy Frutig, spokeswoman for the Orange Unified School District. “We believe it was done by an outsider, just by the message. It was directed in a very obscene way toward anyone connected with El Modena.”

The school has been in the national spotlight because of a court battle over the gay-straight club’s efforts to meet on campus.

U.S. District Court Judge David O. Carter ruled that the district must let the Gay-Straight Alliance club meet while a lawsuit filed by student club founders Anthony Colin and Heather Zetin works its way through the courts. The students sued under the federal Equal Access Act of 1984, which says a public school that allows any nonacademic clubs to meet on campus--as El Modena does--cannot bar others based on what might be discussed at meetings.

Colin, 15, and Zetin, 16, were angered by the fliers, which they said had a sexual message that is contrary to the Gay-Straight Alliance club’s mission. The students said the club’s aim is to promote respect and understanding among students, not to discuss sex. They plan to hold their first on-campus meeting Wednesday over lunch.