Fresh from the AP (bold mine):
An attorney for two gay students at a north Florida high school told a federal judge Thursday they should be allowed to form a campus club promoting tolerance toward gays, despite a school prohibition.
But a lawyer for the Nassau County School Board said the group's name, Gay-Straight Alliance, is against school policy.
Yulee High School students Hannah Page and Jacob Brock, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, are suing the school board to overturn its decision banning them from forming the club at school. Yulee is about 25 miles north of Jacksonville, near the Georgia state line.
For those of you who are following the Prop 8 hearings, I think this story serves as a very interesting microcosm of what's happening 3,000 miles away -- even if it doesn't get the press that Prop 8 does.
ACLU Attorney Robert F. Rosenwald Jr. argued that Page and Brock had been the target of anti-gay epithets and threats of violence at school and wanted to start the Gay-Straight Alliance to open a discourse among students.
Attorney Frank Sheppard, who represents the school board, said the district's main complaint is the name of the group, saying it does not approve of groups dealing with sexual orientation and noted the school has an abstinence-based sex education curriculum.
The funny thing about this is, the school board has no problem with letting the Fellowship of Christian athletes meet on campus. They have no problem with that group's name. But use the word GAY in a school club, and FIRE AND BRIMSTONE!!
If anybody is wondering why support for overturning Prop 8 or even doing as little as supporting gay civil unions is lagging, this is a perfect example. In Florida, they won't even let you talk about gayness in high schools, much less consider legalizing gay marriage. And now, these students have to fight just to let them use the word "gay" in their school club's name.
Sometimes I think we really are living in the year 1650.
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Cross-posted at Talking Points Memo