School Board Moves To Tighten Restriction On Gay Club
by 365Gay.com Newscenter Staff

Posted: October 10,  2007 - 1:00 pm ET

(Okeechobee, Florida) Despite an ongoing federal lawsuit challenging the Okeechobee County School Board's banning of a Gay-Straight Organization the board has moved to tighten its rules governing clubs.

At a meeting Tuesday the board revised its rules on clubs to bar from the campus of Okeechobee High School any "sex-based" clubs.

Schools Superintendent Patricia Cooper in a memo to board officials before the meeting said that the proposal came from its attorneys and would “assure that student clubs and organizations do not interfere with the School Board’s abstinence only sex education policy.”

Last year students blocked from organizing a Gay Straight Alliance went to court with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union, filing a federal civil rights lawsuit. 

The ACLU argues that the Equal Access Act stipulates that when a school allows any non-curricular club to meet on campus, it must allow all non-curricular clubs to meet on campus.

In April U.S. District Court Judge K. Michael Moore issued a preliminary injunction ordering the school district to allow the club to meet on school property while the civil rights lawsuit is being heard. (story) 

Cooper Tuesday night said that because of the injunction the GSA will be allowed to meet for the remainder of this school year, but that the new rule would bar the group next year.

That may be wishful thinking.  The federal court has yet to rule on the GSA.

The students began the struggle to form the club in 2006 after student Yasmin Gonzalez and her girlfriend were told they could not attend the school prom as a couple. The rejection was one of several incidents targeting LGBT students at Okeechobee High School. 

The school blocked the club from meeting on campus and the students sought the help of the ACLU which filed the federal suit.

School district attorney David Gibbs says that the Equal Access Act can't be used in the case of a GSA and that Florida law requires schools to teach abstinence, "while teaching the benefits of monogamous heterosexual marriage."   

In granting the preliminary injunction Judge Moore said that the school board's attorneys had failed to show that the GSA was a "sex-based club". 

Arguments in the civil rights suit are expected to be held early next year.

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