ACLU Sues to Enforce Equal Access for Gay-Straight Alliance

When Disney World is opening its doors up to gays, you know there's been a change in public consciousness.

Right down the road, gay issues came to a head at Okeechobee High School, where a recent battle was resolved by a Florida judge between the ACLU and the Okeechobee School Board. Why? Well, the ACLU was fighting another case for the formation of a gay-straight alliance.

Authorities at Okeechobee High School denied the right of its students to form a gay-straight alliance following the school's decision to disallow homosexual students from attending the prom with same-sex partners. Its grounds? That the organization of a gay-straight alliance violated the school's abstinence-only sex education policy. The ACLU sought to establish that by denying a gay-straight alliance the opportunity to form, they had violated the Federal Equal Access Act, which denies a school's authority to pick and choose which extracurricular groups can be formed on campus. The school allowed Christian, athletic, and other social outlets to organize -- discrimination against homosexual students was fairly obvious. Thus, while the school possessed a valid right to determine an abstinence-only sex education policy, a federal judge determined that they did not have the jurisdiction to presuppose the purpose of an organization and deny it existence on this basis. The judge maintained that the organization's primary purpose seemed to be the advocacy of tolerance, not to promote a promiscuous lifestyle. Upon this ruling, the lead counsel for the Okeechobee School Board seemed content to concede.

While the court can only issue an order to force the school to allow the organization the right to form, the school -- as a public institution -- relies on funding from the government in order to operate. This factor in combination with a federal court's order should be enough to ensure the existence of a gay-straight alliance. In addition, the court's ruling rests on a strong precedent of support for the formation of gay-straight alliances.

The ACLU writes:

"The order was granted primarily on the basis that the Federal Equal Access Act requires schools that allow any extracurricular club to meet on campus to allow all clubs to meet on campus. The ACLU has won other recent GSA victories across the nation, from Madera, California to White County, Georgia. This was also the first time a federal court has heard an Equal Access Act challenge in Florida."

This victory should be heralded as another step in the development of impact legislation for gay rights advocates. The building of case victories remains crucial as the court's policy of stare decisis to preserve its own legitimacy will play a large role in future decisions regarding homosexual issues.