Gay-straight clubs issue is already settled

Any discussion about reconsidering the appropriateness of gay-straight student alliances in Utah public schools is like picking a scab.

Don't go there. Please.

I say this as an observer of the previous GSA debates. They were painful and divisive discussions that literally divided communities. It's not something we should revisit.

Here's why. Most people's feelings about gays, lesbians, transgendered people and issues are deeply entrenched. Their feelings are colored by their personal experiences, religious beliefs and their study of issues. It's like debating abortion or the death penalty. There are few fence-sitters.

When I covered this issue in the Salt Lake City School District in the 1990s, the debate quickly degenerated from its initial point — whether students at East High School could form a gay-straight alliance — to a referendum on homosexuality. People who opposed the club were labeled as bigots and gay-bashers. People who supported the club were demonized for attempting to "recruit" straight people into the gay agenda. The school board debate became a national platform for gay rights organizations as well as arch-conservative groups — each plying their respective agendas.

This was a local debate, but Congress basically decided the issue in 1984 when it passed the federal Equal Access Act. It's intent was to halt discrimination against religious clubs.

In essence, the Equal Access Act spells out that curriculum clubs are run by schools. "But if kids want to get together and meet on other topics, if you open your door to any of those clubs, you open your door to all clubs," explains Martin Bates, assistant to the superintendent on legal issues and policy in Granite School District, in a recent Deseret Morning News report.

The proper venue for this fight, if it indeed needs to be fought, would be Congress, but no one seems anxious to move on the point.

There's always the courts, you might say, but the courts have already answered this issue. There's little point in spending more taxpayer resources to address an issue that the courts have already ruled upon.

The real question is, why do we want to open an old wound?

This issue rightly belongs in the hands of parents and local school boards. If a school board permits a gay-straight alliance, it's up to individual families to decide whether their children can participate. If gay-straight alliances, as school principals represent, are doing service work and helping students to feel less isolated during their high school years, what's the harm of that?