Another ALASKA Action alert: Dimond High Gay/Lesbian/Straight Club

[Jessea NR Greenman]

>From: Alas...@aol.com
>Date: Sun, 24 Nov 1996 02:30:10 -0500
>To: Alas...@aol.com
>Subject: Dimond High Gay/Lesbian/Straight Club UPDATE #4
>
>As I said in my email on Friday, the Dimond Gay/Straight Alliance is not on
>the School Board Agenda for Monday (11/25) nights meeting. However, people
>are allowed to speak on non-agenda items two times during a meeting (before
>and after agenda items). If you want to speak, call 269-2115 Monday morning
>or sign up to speak at the meeting itself at the ASD at 4600 DeBarr Road at
>6:30pm.
>
>I understand the principal, Ms. Pat McDowell, at Dimond High is still
>receiving mostly negative comments. If you would like to call her to express
>your support for her positive response to the club, her phone number is (907)
>243-1141 or fax her at (907) 249-0350. I do not have an email address for
>her at this time but I hope to have one soon.
>
>I am including a listing of names/phone numbers (all AC 907 for you who are
>Outside) and email addresses for the 7 members of the Anchorage School Board
>below:
>
>Debbie Ossiander (Board President)...688-2308
>email: ossiande...@msmail.asd.k12.ak.us
>
>Harriet Drummond...279-7722
>email: drummond...@msmail.asd.k12.ak.us
>
>Lorraine Ferrell...337-4003
>email: ferrell_...@msmail.asd.k12.ak.us
>
>Kathi Gillespie...345-5335
>email: gillesp...@msmail.asd.k12.ak.us
>
>Kelly Haney...522-4351
>email: haney...@msmail.asd.k12.ak.us
>
>Peggy Robinson-Wilson...333-1831
>email: robinson-w...@msmail.asd.k12.ak.us
>
>Dave Werdal...248-8533
>email: werda...@msmail.asd.k12.ak.us
>
>Ossiander, Drummond & Robinson-Wilson are usually more progressive members of
>the Board.
>
>Ferrell, Gillespie and Werdal are most conservative with Werdal probably
>being the one to lead the fight against the club.
>
>Kelly Haney is the "wild card". She is the 18 year old who was elected to
>the School Board while she was still a high school student and is usually a
>moderate-conservative.
>
>Letters/calls/email should help keep this issue in focus. As required by
>federal law and district policy, this group was formed by students and is led
>by students with faculty advisers. It is probably best to be as positive as
>possible in our communication with the Board. Possibly giving our own
>experiences as gay/lesbian/bi/trans when we were in school and emphasizing we
>have nothing officially to do with the club. If you are a parent/friend of a
>l/b/g/t person, safety is a key issue. Also emphasize the goals of the
>club...ending discrimination and educating people on social skills in living
>within a diverse community. How could anyone involved with the Anchorage
>School District oppose these goals???
>
>Although, it should be positive, I plan to ask Dave Werdal at what age he was
>"recruited" to be a heterosexual. He was quoted in the paper as saying it
>appeared the club was "borderline recruiting." I assume he thinks all people
>are asexual until they are "recruited" to become either
>homosexual/bisexual/heterosexual!! I also plan to point out the recent
>payment of $900,000.00 by a school district in the midwest to a gay man for
>not protecting him from abuse during the time he was a student in their
>schools.
>
>If you receive responses to your email or letters please forward me a copy
>for EQUAL's files.
>
>Dan Carter
>
>P.S. Please forward any ideas you have on this issue and I will send them to
>the others on this email list. If you have friends you think should be added
>to the email list, forward them a copy of this email and ask them to send me
>email requesting their address be added to my file.

[here again is the news article on the subject...]

ANCHORAGE DAILY NEWS THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 1996
TEMPEST BREWS OVER GAY STUDENT CLUB
BY: Rachel D'Oro
Daily News Reporter

Formed to promote acceptance and awareness, a new club for gay and straight
students at Dimond High School instead has sparked protests and debate.

A varsity hockey player had to sit out a game last week after he ripped down
a poster announcing the Gay/Straight Alliance. Parents are calling principal
Pat McDowell to question her sexual orientation and accuse the club of being
a dating service. Some students are calling for an end to all noncurriculum
clubs, even if it means sacrificing their own clubs, while others are coming
to the new club's defense.

School district officials say the club is clearly allowed under district
policies and federal law. But with a firestorm of controversy brewing,
School Board members expect to deal with the issue at their regular meeting
Monday.

"There's been a very visceral reaction," McDowell said Wednesday. "We are
all being assaulted over this thing."

Emotions have run high since the groups official startup November 13 when
members put up club fliers. A senior hockey player tore down a poster in
front of a male club member, then made derogatory comments about him,
McDowell said. The athlete admitted what he did, and school officials barred
him from playing the school's hockey game Friday night. McDowell said that
contrary to rumors, no fight occurred during the incident.

Schools superintendent Bob Christal said the students legally established the
club. They crafted a club constitution as required by a district policy
adopted by the School Board three years ago when Barlett High students formed
a Bible Club. The board policy conforms to the federal Equal Access Act,
which prohibits schools from banning clubs for their religious, political or
philosophical beliefs. "If you allow one noncurriculum club in, you have to
allow all of them in," Christal said. "You can't pic and choose groups based
on your own personal biases. That's how we're proceeding with this."

Since the news spread about the Dimond High Gay/Straight Alliance, however,
McDowell and other school and district officials have been inundated with
mostly negative calls from parents and students as well as the public. A
local conservative radio talk show railed against the group as immoral and
subversive.

School Board member David Werdal said the emerging controversy demands that
the board review the district policy and federal law. An exception applies
for clubs that distract students from learning, he said. And if a gay club
is allowed, Werdal asked, what's to keep students from forming a neo-Nazi
group or other extremist group? "We need to further define what will or
won't work," he said. He added that he doesn't want to ban all noncurriculum
clubs. Earlier this year, Salt Lake City schools quashed a gay student club
by issuing a blanket ban on all extracurricular clubs.

"I have a difficulty with that," Werdal said. "I was in Chess Club in high
school." Werdal said he is most bothered by one of the club's posters which
asks students if they were gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender or curious.
That seems like borderline recruitment to me," Werdal said (NOTE: poster
displayed on television said "gay, lesbian, bisexual, straight or
CONFUSED--alaskadan).

Nothing could be further from the club's goals, said its faculty sponsors,
who will attend the morning meetings and clear all activities. The members
are trying to fight prejudice and homophobia through education and awareness,
said school psychologist Mary Duhoux, one of the club's three faculty
sponsors. "The kids certainly talk about being discriminated against," she
said. "And there's a certain amount of tension from this. Nobody expected
quite this negative reaction. But it's always been hard for gay kids."

One Dimond High parent, Judith Hoersting, praised the group for granting
equal access to gay, lesbian, bisexual and straight students. Hoersting,
whose son is a member of the alliance, criticized the media for
sensationalizing a sensitive issue. "This isn't about morality; it's about
civil rights," Hoersting said. "The club has a very pure intent: to help
students by insulating and supporting them. These children have so much
courage to come forward."

Whatever the outcome of the ongoing debate, school officials must not be led
by their own feelings about an emotional issue, cautioned School Board
President Debbie Ossiander. The federal law should be closely re-examined
and then applied. "My personal feelings are irrelevant," Ossiander said. "We
need to make sure the law is being followed. It also needs to be made clear
the club is not something the school district promoted or supported. It's
strictly student-led, and student-initiated. It's not subsidized by us, only
to the degree that we're allowing our building to be used."
>

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From: Kath...@aol.com
Just wanted to let you know that I have been maintaining a mailing list
that targets gays and gay-friendly people in Utah. The mail is almost
entirely about gay issues. I add Salt Lake area and
Utah-specific news and information. Please feel free to let people know that
if they are gay or gay-friendly and in Utah or from Utah, that "Kathy's List"
is free - and easy to get on or off.
Kathy Worthington
Salt Lake City
Kath...@aol.com

*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+
OK TO RE-POST. Jessea NR Greenman, <jes...@uclink4.berkeley.edu>
The P.E.R.S.O.N. Project (Public Education Regarding Sexual Orientation
Nationally)
The P.E.R.S.O.N. Project is an all-volunteer effort
CHECK OUT OUR FREE INFO-LOADED WEB PAGE AT
http://www.youth.org/loco/PERSONProject/

"The struggle will never end so enjoy it!" Maudelle Shirek