Families Sue to Opt Their Kids Out of School-Mandated Pro-Homosexual Seminar
by Jim Brown
February 28, 2006
(AgapePress) - - A federal judge has prohibited students from opting out of mandatory pro-homosexual diversity training in one Kentucky school system. District Judge David Bunning says students in Boyd County Schools have no religious or free-speech right to opt out of a yearly seminar aimed at preventing anti-homosexual harassment.
The diversity training for staff members and middle school and high school students is the result of a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on behalf of a Gay-Straight Alliance Club that is now permitted to meet on campus. Kevin Theriot with the Alliance Defense Fund is representing three families that have filed a lawsuit challenging the mandatory diversity training.
Although Judge Bunning's ruling is distressing, Theriot says, he notes that his clients have won half of the concessions they sought through the lawsuit. "They had a policy before we filed the lawsuit that said that a student couldn't tell another student that homosexual behavior is wrong," he explains. "After we filed the lawsuit, they changed the policy."
The attorney says that policy that initially barred students from telling classmates that homosexuality is morally wrong "actually was part of the training that was given to students in the Boyd County Schools-mandated seminar."
Also, Theriot maintains, school officials "were trying to convince students that homosexual behavior is something that can't be controlled, and that it's something you're born with, and it's just like having a handicap," or "just like being born of a different race." Of course, the ADF-affiliated lawyer adds, these notions are "completely contrary to the religious beliefs of our clients."
The required pro-homosexual diversity training ends next year, but for now, the federal court ruling in place gives Boyd County Schools staff, middle school and high school students disagreeing with its content no option to sit out. Theriot is currently considering whether to appeal Judge Bunning's decision to the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Jim Brown, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
