Posted on 11/28/2004 12:21:56 AM PST by JohnHuang2
Sunday, November 28, 2004
If administrators of Kentucky's Boyd County school district can't find a way to force all students to attend sexual orientation and gender identity "tolerance training," the American Civil Liberties Union is threatening to take them to court – again.
Ten months ago, the district settled a lawsuit with the ACLU over the right of a student group, the Gay-Straight Alliance, to meet on campus. The year-long litigation strained relations in the conservative northeast portion of the state. In addition to allowing the group to meet on campus after school, district officials agreed that all students, staff and teachers would be required to receive "tolerance training."
The agreement stipulated all would attend "mandatory anti-harassment workshops," including the viewing of an hour-long "training" video covering sexual orientation and gender identity issues for middle and high school students.
But ten months on, one-third of Boyd County students have failed to see the video, and that has the ACLU threatening court action.
"It sounds like the training can't possibly be done," James Esseks, litigation director for the ACLU's Lesbian and Gay Rights Project, tells the Louisville Courier-Journal.
District figures show 105 of 730 middle school students opted out of the training video and 145 of 971 high school students did likewise. On the day scheduled for training, 324 students didn't show up for school.
The current legal snag arises from the fact the original consent decree had no provision for parents exempting their children.
"The schools have great latitude in what they want to teach, including what's in training programs, and the training is now part of the school curriculum," Esseks says. "Parents don't get to say I don't want you to teach evolution or this, that or whatever else. If parents don't like it they can homeschool, they can go to a private school, they can go to a religious school."
"Where are the parental rights in this whole thing?" asks Rev. Tim York, president of the Boyd County Ministerial Alliance and head of Defenders Voice, a community group formed to contest the decree.
According to the group's website, Defenders Voice "incorporated due to the need for protection of both the physical and mental health of our students and citizens." Its members place blame for their current distress squarely on the ACLU:
"We have seen an onslaught of aggressive homosexual activism sweep across our country. In many cases, these activists are supported by the ACLU in their attempts. ... Defenders Voice believes that an organization like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) should not be allowed to tell parents what their children must learn."
The Alliance Defense Fund, a religious-liberties public-interest legal group, has signed on to help Defenders Voice, pledging to sue the school district unless it adopts an opt-out policy for parents this week. Alliance was formed in 1993 with the guidance of several well-known Christian conservatives, including the late Dr. Bill Bright, the late Larry Burkett, Dr. James Dobson, Dr. D. James Kennedy, and the late Marlin Maddoux.
Joe Platt, a Cincinnati attorney representing Alliance, says mandatory training on tolerance for homosexuals violates the right of conscience of parents and students who believe such behavior immoral.
But school district attorney, Winter Huff, insists to the Courier-Journal the decree does not violate parental rights: "Students certainly have the right to believe in what they want to believe, but they don't have the right to act out in inappropriate ways. The point is you don't treat people disrespectfully, you don't pick on people, you don't bully them, you don't make them afraid to come to school."
Meanwhile, only one of the seven plaintiffs in the 2003 lawsuit still remain in school. Six have graduated, and the teacher-adviser for the Gay-Straight Alliance club asked to transfer to another campus.
The ACLU's Esseks is now questioning whether the mandatory video meets the decree's required hour of anti-harassment training. Like one-third of the students in Boyd County schools, he has yet to view it.
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Inquiring minds would like to know if Winter Huff is an ACLU lawyyer and a gay lawyer on top of that
So what? I would oppose those perverts being anywhere close to my children. This isn't a matter of "rights". It's a matter of the school being able to deny organizations and influences which are detrimental to the students and offensive to their parents from using public, tax-payer funded places to spread their filth. When tolerance of evil and perversion becomes the norm, then there will be nothing labeled as evil or perverted. This is cultural Marxism, nothing more.
"Keep your eyes open for legislation that will when enacted specifically define such areas -removing the vague 'moral' landscape these aclu types graze in; consequently, nipping these lawsuits in the bud as frivolous..."
Now that would be a master work of lawmaking! Take away the financial incentive from all these lawyers and watch them disappear. I hope to see it soon...
What is so funny is the maggot you described was openingly cited in his official bios to be what you described until I started posting those ACLU links on Free Republic. Then the old bios started to disappear and the new ones without mentioning the "Openingly Gay" started to appear last week.
A large % of the various state directors of ACLU are openingly gay lawyers.
I think according to the ACLU the issue is more queerly complicated.
As per the ACLU when arguing 'trans-gender' cases: "gender is not merely defined by physical attribute" -- hmmm... This ambiguity would seem to suggest 'orientation' normally a derived relative 'fact' -truly a non-issue as it can relate to no 'genital' frame of reference...
Further, discrimination presupposes a basis upon observable differences... IF gender is meaningless and orientation ambiguous -discrimination is impossible...
How is the ACLU funded.....?
Make them watch abortions
The attorneys in your federal agencies do not litigate cases [after 50 years they are also liberals]. They provide legal advice to the politico's on how to avoid litigation. Once a suit is filed, litigation for the US government is handled the attorneys from the Justice Department. So, no, their attitude is litigation avoidance, not making sure they pick key cases to fight and win them.
Even worse, these "public interest" groups have another thing going for them. Once they file, they will ask for attorney's fees which are usually given in settlement, or as a result of trial.
"So what? I would oppose those perverts being anywhere close to my children."
My point is if they had allowed them to meet in the first place, nobody would be watching any videos. There were seven plaintiffs in the original suit and all but one have already graduated. I would think this club didn't have a very large membership and would have excerted little influence on the student body if they were allowed to have their meeting. And you can oppose it all you want but the fact is, homos are already close to your children. I say let them have their meetings and maintain their small circle which I can keep my kids out of.
I don't have any children, but I happen to live in this very same school district, Boyd Co., Ky, in a solidly middle class subdivision. There are about 25 homes in our neighborhood, before the election, there were only 2 of us with the guts to put Bush signs in our yard. There was a 3rd one, but his union thug neighbor intimidated him into removing his sign. I hate to say it, but the ACLU is probably going to have it's way with this school, because from what I observe everyday is that most of the parents here just don't care. Only one family here homeschools their child. The rest of them are so busy "keeping up with the Jones's" and doing everything they can to make their kids "popular". Both of their parents are working 1 or 2 jobs each - so their kids can wear the latest designer clothes & drive the hottest vehicles to school. Most of the teenagers up here are driving new convertibles & hot little SUVs, while their parents are driving the old clunkers. Lots of the parents go to the Elks on weekend nights & get drunk while their kids are having their own drunken parties at home, unattended by any adults (I see this with my own eyes). It all goes back to what I think is the biggest problem in America today - BAD PARENTING. We may live in a conservative red state, but I have to believe Bush won here because of the war on terror - I don't see much evidence of family values here - truthfully - it looks more like "Desperate Housewives" than anything else. The kids in my neighborhood are spoiled beyond belief, they throw their fast food litter & beer cans out of the windows by the side of the road & don't even care that they are crapping their own neighborhood. They haven't been taught any different I'm sorry to say.
ACLU has become a master in the suppression of civil liberties, esp. religious liberty.
Then why exactly are they being subject to Stalinist brainwashing, disrespected, picked on, bullied, and intimidated about coming to school, by these interloping fascist goons? Get the heck out. None of your business. Education is local for a reason, so parents and parents alone can decide what they want taught to their kids. Which is, incidentally, a universally recognized human right. The state forcing on kids a kind of education their parents do not want for them, was specifically denounced as a violation of human rights after WW II.
I believe my post was clear and concise.
Homosexuals and their supporters (including yourself apparently) have continuously misused and invented words and terms to further your crusade against society.
Can someone, anyone on this thread explain to me what "rights" that homosexuals have been denied?
What? It takes the Village People to raise a child? The ACLU will always prevail because they own the judiciary. It's past time for active aggression against this most un-American of institutions and their toadies. They are as much a threat to our young as any foul disease.
As I've said on numerous occassions, I really don't care what anyone does in their bedroom.
Just don't parade up and down main street insisting that I must like their perversion.
I really think that this about sums up the average persons "homophobia" in this country.
I would wear a "Happiness is Napalming a Gay-Pride Parade!" tee-shirt to the T. T. class.
What I thought the ACLU is pro-choice. Wouldn't the ALCU support the students' right to choose not to see the film?
Once the ALCU gains absolute control of the public schools, they will seek to undermine the education value of private schools and homeschools. The ACLU has never supported the rights of homeschoolers.
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