Activist: Clubs Promoting Risky Behavior Should Be Booted from Campus
by Jim Brown
July 3, 2006
(AgapePress) - - A Michigan school board is defying the requests of parents who want Gay Straight Alliance (GSA) clubs banned in the district.
Despite the objections of concerned parents, the Forest Hills School Board has vowed it will not shut down three GSA clubs in the district. The board claims the federal Equal Access Act requires schools to allow sex-based clubs. But Gary Glenn, director of the American Family Association of Michigan, says schools can ban student groups that promote risky behavior -- and it has already been done, he adds.
"In fact, the Lubbock (Texas) School District did exactly that. They found that the so-called Gay Straight Alliance would be promoting behavior that was self-destructive and harmful to young people," Glenn says, "and on that basis refused to allow such homosexual propaganda to take place in the public schools."
Glenn notes that the courts backed the district's decision. "Of course, the ACLU and homosexual activists sued [but] the federal court upheld the right of the school district to act in the way it thought was in the best interests for the health of the students," he points out. In that case two years ago, a federal judge barred the Lubbock Gay Straight Alliance from meeting on campus, citing the school district's right to determine "what subject matter is considered obscene or inappropriate."
Glenn says if the Forest Hills School Board in Michigan "truly cared about young people who are ensnared by deviant behavior, they would tell them the truth that homosexuality is harmful and to be avoided." The family advocate explains that no school is mandated to allow clubs that promote deviancy.
"This issue is an opportunity for concerned parents to educate themselves, their students, their children, and also the public at large about the health hazards, the public health consequences, of homosexual behavior," Glenn states. In addition, he says it is an opportunity to explain why it is inappropriate "spiritually, morally, physically, mentally, and emotionally" to promote homosexual behavior to pre-teens and teens as being normal. "It's not," says the Michigan activist. "It's self-destructive."
Jim Brown, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
