Posted on 06/16/2005 11:26:16 AM PDT by Lorianne
The president of West High School’s Gay-Straight Alliance is threatening to sue Tracy Unified School District if teachers aren’t forced to take a training course on homophobia.
It’s the latest in a series of demands that student Justin Daley and the GSA have made of the TUSD, extra pressure that’s forcing the district and residents to grapple with homosexuality in a way that’s never happened before.
“I’m giving them time to redeem themselves,” said Daley, an Institute for Global Commerce and Government junior. “If the problems are fixed, then I won’t move any further with it.”
Daley is talking to the American Civil Liberties Union about harassment of gays on campus, though the ACLU hasn’t made a commitment to represent Daley if he decides to file a lawsuit, said Tamara Lange, a lawyer with the organization.
“We help school districts comply with anti-harassment laws both by referring them to trainers and doing training ourselves,” she said. “We also do the same thing of protecting students when school districts fall down on the job, and when a lawsuit is the only approach to ensure that students are not harassed on campus.”
Superintendent Jim Franco wouldn’t say whether the district would embrace teacher training. Instead, he said the district plans to continue providing diversity training for employees.
The GSA, Franco said, has brought the issues it cares about most — gay rights — to the attention of the public.
Not all of it wanted. But in doing so, the alliance captured unwanted attention — from the rabidly anti-gay Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kan., led by Pastor Fred Phelps, whose congregation of roughly 100 consists mainly of close relatives.
Phelps vowed in May to protest the graduation ceremonies of the two biggest public high schools in Tracy, both scheduled for this Saturday.
But the group has changed its mind and will only picket Tracy High School’s ceremony, a touch of irony considering the GSA began its quest for gay rights on West High campus.
The church says it can’t make it to the West graduation because it will not be here in time for the 9 a.m. ceremony, said Shirley Phelps-Roper, the church’s legal counsel.
It will also protest several local church services on Sunday.
Westboro is known nationally for protesting events like the 1998 funeral of Matthew Shepard, a gay college student murdered in Laramie, Wyo., because of his sexual orientation. The church is also infamous for celebrating events many consider tragic, such as 9/11, the recent death of the pope and the tsunami in Asia.
If past protests are an indication, graduates and their parents can expect about 15 Westboro church members to quietly hold signs and wear T-shirts with slogans like “God Hates Fags.”
The church decided to fly halfway across the country to protest local graduations once it got wind that the GSA put pressure on the district to punish math teacher Richard Thompson for expressing his views on homosexuality in class.
Thompson, the GSA claims, said homosexuality isn’t natural and that hanging out with gays is just as sinful as being gay. Thompson has denied saying that. In any case, he’s quitting his job and heading back to the high technology field.
Protesting the protesters But Westboro’s plans sparked others to act, and now the GSA and other groups plan to counterprotest with picket lines of their own.
Media coverage of Westboro’s plans has cast a much brighter spotlight on the GSA and its agenda than it probably would’ve received had the church not threatened to protest.
“I’m sure there must be some type of town divide between the old and new residents,” said Barbara West, a cultural anthropologist with the University of the Pacific in Stockton. “As soon as you get someone with a national reputation, then you find out whom your friends and enemies are, and you get a lot of publicity that you wouldn’t have gotten before.”
The protest will be included in an upcoming documentary on hate and attitudes toward gays. Kelly Huston, who has won awards for writing and producing a documentary on gang activity in Stanislaus County, will be the documentary’s senior producer.
“What drew our attention is the fact that Fred Phelps and his church would come to protest in Tracy,” Huston said. “It seemed unusual to us that (Phelps) would target a smaller community like Tracy. The Tracy part is a good example of an issue that is being raised in a very inflammatory way by Westboro Baptist Church.”
But publicity also came from local news stories, letters to the editor and opinion pieces that show how divisive gay-rights issues are in this once staunchly conservative community.
A community split Judging by those letters, there seems to be universal condemnation of Westboro and fury for hateful protests that could mar graduations. Yet some of those same Phelps critics are also angry at Daley for his activism and refuse to sanction homosexuality. Still others support the GSA.
“Those young people need to grow up and realize that what they do in their sex lives is something of which many people are absolutely disgusted,” Tracy resident Katheryn Fisher wrote in a May letter to the Tracy Press.
Fisher also expressed frustration about protesters from both sides picketing in front of her child’s graduation.
On the campus it shares with West High, IGCG senior Emily Campbell said, “I think it is ridiculous. A graduation is no place for a protest. I don’t think the GSA and half the clubs belong in the schools.”
Campbell, 18, added that she isn’t opposed to homosexuality.
The GSA also has supporters.
“Any teacher that makes or promotes anti-gay, anti-race or anti-religious comments in the classroom should be fired,” said Tracy resident Kelly McDonald in a letter to the editor on the same day as Fisher’s.
Bohn Elementary School first-grade teacher Mike Chivers recently wrote a Tracy Press column that said he’s opposed to homosexuality as a Christian. He attends Grace Brethren Church, one that Westboro plans to picket on Sunday.
But he supports the GSA’s desire to stop harassment against gay, bisexual and transgender students at West and Tracy.
“The Bible is pretty clear that homosexuality is not an appropriate lifestyle,” he said. “The bottom line really is we need to start talking with each other rather than calling names and pointing fingers. I think it is tragic that there is a group out there that thinks that the way to reach people for Christ is by beating them over the head with a few selected verses from the Bible.”
Mores shaken Daley said gay, lesbians and transsexuals aren’t shoving their sexuality down people’s throats. Instead, he said, he’s trying to put a stop to the harassment of gays for being who they are.
Campus clubs pushing for gay rights encourage high-school students to think critically, said Matt Netto, Tracy’s GSA faculty adviser and choir director, last week.
“Typically, issues like this play out first in high school and college,” he said. “They want to challenge the established norms of society. Personally, I think that is quite healthy, but it creates controversy. I have watched lots of kids learn how to think more rationally through all of this.”
Daley said the influx of Bay Area transplants is uprooting the town culturally.
“Tracy is no longer a conservative Central Valley town. People’s views are changing.”
Sounds like a classic case of hetrophobia to me.
A course in how to be more homophobic?
That is the usual result of forced 'sensitivity' training.
SO9
That's as far as I got with this article.
Remember, homosexuals increase their numbers (and power) through recruitment.
"They want to challenge the established norms of society. Personally, I think that is quite healthy"
Only if the change is positive.
"The solution is to get involved in the school and stop the formation of these GSA's."
Sure. But if that fails... PULL YOUR KIDS OUT OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS.
Just sickening.
Attention homosexuals. I'm not afraid of you, I just don't want you mainstreaming your lifestyle to my kids and others'.
I feel SOORRY for yoU! Your so IGNORANT! You have nio idea what it means to be gay! You have no PROOF gays recruit, that's been disproven, children are BORN GAY, they need your SUPPORT AND LOVE AND ENCOURAGEMENT, not your BIGOTRY and HATRED. I feel SORRY for you. You and your kind should be locked up. You are so full of HATE I feel SORRY for YOU!!!!!
"Woe unto those who call evil good and good evil" (Isa.5:20)
More thoughts:
Phobia refers to a mental illness related to irrational fear. Therefore, so-called homophobia should refer to a mental illness related to the irrational fear of homosexuals or homosexuality.
If that is true, then while homosexuals reject being considered mentally ill, they have no problems labeling others as mentally ill.
How prevalent is this mental illness, homophobia?
"Attention homosexuals. I'm not afraid of you, I just don't want you mainstreaming your lifestyle to my kids and others'."
Well put. It is not a "phobia" of homosexuals that makes me oppose gay student groups. I simply don't want them pushing their lifestyle on confused, impressionable, not yet sexually mature kids.
Choir director ... perfect.
This statement is true. Man is born into sin, sin is in the flesh. God prefers we overcome the sins of the flesh. Get some help. Please.
"You have no PROOF gays recruit"
It is not "sign up here" recruiting. The reason we call it recruiting is that encouraging a certain behavior or lifestyle on kids that young and impressionable is bound to have an influence. Hence a gay group for students far too young to know whether or not they're really homosexual or just "late bloomers", is bound to create more homosexuals.
I agree......all of the "phobia" seems to be among the homosexual community, not the heterosexual community
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