| hursday, February 23, 2006 | |
| Clubs debate centers on morality | | Print | |
| ALAN CHOATE - Daily Herald | |
| The name of state Sen. Chris Buttars's legislation is generic -- "School Club Amendments" -- and he started his presentation to the Utah Senate by saying, "First, I'd like to talk to you about what this bill doesn't do. "We're not outlawing any club," he said. "What we have done ... is present an outline of criteria that schools can use to evaluate clubs of all sorts." But "all sorts" of clubs weren't discussed on the Senate floor Wednesday afternoon. The focus was on chapters of the Gay Straight Alliance in Utah public schools, and Buttars -- as he did earlier this week -- turned it into a moral denunciation of homosexuality. "If you're going to say that homosexual behavior is OK," the West Jordan Republican said, "then you've declared that there is no morality." The legislation passed its first Senate vote 18-11, and it must pass one more vote before it clears the body. Similar legislation is pending in the House of Representatives. Even as it advanced, though, some -- including the state Office of Education -- said the bill is unnecessary and includes provisions that could open up a nest of problems for school districts. Furthermore, the fact that Buttars continues to rail against homosexuality while insisting the bill has nothing to do with GSA clubs could doom the measure if it's challenged in court. Ye olde values debate In comments to the Senate, Buttars returned to the theme that clubs like the Gay Straight Alliance are a threat to students' morals and that they work to convert people to their cause. "The gay community says these clubs are just, 'We love you,' and support and tea and crumpets. You hear that all the time," Buttars said. "But that isn't true." In a rare move, the Senate allowed a non-legislator to address the Senate during floor debate -- Scott Soulier, a Salt Lake City resident who also spoke during committee hearings on the bill. He retold the story of his 16-year-old niece whom he said had been "targeted, recruited and indoctrinated" by gay students at her school. During a recent family discussion, "she began to speak in defense of homosexual behavior, which I know her parents had not taught her," Soulier said. "She didn't come up with those arguments in her mind by herself. "When she right in front of us demonstrated that she had been recruited ... it hit home. It hit close. We spoke to her as kindly as we could," he said. Sen. Scott McCoy, D-Salt Lake City, forcefully attacked those assertions. "I have never recruited a single person into the homosexual lifestyle, because it's not a chosen lifestyle," McCoy said. "I didn't wake up one day and choose to be gay. I don't believe that anybody wakes up one day and chooses to be gay." Nor do people choose to be straight, he added: "It's who you are." He also challenged Soulier's recruiting story: "If recruiting is, 'We recognize that there are different kinds of people in the world and there are different kinds of ideas,' " he said, "... then recruiting is not such a bad idea." McCoy also noted that gay people work, raise families, pay taxes and live normal lives -- and that they will continue to do so regardless of a piece of legislation. "We don't claim to be perfect. But we are absolutely moral people," he said. "We try and live our lives the best we can. "Just because you disagree with one particular aspect of our lives does not render us wholly immoral." In today's high schools, he continued, gay and lesbian teenagers are the No. 1 targeted group, subject to ridicule and harassment -- and that's the reason GSA chapters exist. "It's a place that recognizes that those kinds of words and that kind of treatment hurts, causes people to drop out of school, and worse," said McCoy. Buttars later countered that he's also in the race for most-targeted person in Utah, considering the amount of negative e-mail he receives. "I've been called names I've never heard of," he said, "and I've been around a long time." Three Republicans joined the Senate's eight Democrats in voting against the bill. Those supporting the bill steered clear of the debate over homosexuality. Sen. Carlene Walker, R-Salt Lake City, said clubs focused on sexual identity don't belong in high schools, just as a club for white supremacists should also be banned. "I don't feel that gay and lesbian people are bad," she said. "I'm voting 'aye' because I believe there are certain clubs that are appropriate and inappropriate clubs for high school." Said Sen. Lyle Hillyard, R-Logan: "I don't see anything mentioned about gay and lesbian" in the bill. "I see the bill as having a far greater benefit and purpose." Does it do anything? It might also make things worse for the local school boards it aims to help, said representatives of the American Civil Liberties Union and the state Office of Education. For instance, the requirement of parental consent to participate in clubs could raise liability concerns for districts -- if, for example, a student forges a permission slip or if the consent form isn't filed properly, said Utah ACLU legal director Margaret Plane. And Carol Lear, director for school law and legislation for the education office, said proposed restrictions on club names come "dangerously close" to constitutional free speech issues. Said Plane: "I think what it will come down to is, 'How do schools apply this if it becomes law?' "If the bill were applied to prohibit Gay Straight Alliances, then that would be a violation of the Equal Access Act and the First Amendment." The act is a federal law that requires all schools receiving federal funds to treat clubs equally. Utah state law already bans school clubs from activities involving bigotry, criminal activity and human sexuality. GSA club members, and school officials who watch over them, describe the clubs as social forums for discussing issues like discrimination and for organizing service projects. Buttars' bill isn't needed, Lear said. "We've got a state board rule," she said. "We've got a state law that's in place. If the clubs are doing what they're supposed to and the school boards are doing what they're supposed to, being evenhanded, there's no need for this." She added that all the talk about homosexuality further weakens Buttars's stated intent of providing universal rules for school boards to follow. "If they talk about the bill in ways that discriminate or talk about eliminating the groups," Lear said, it "poisons the well." "They will all be infected by the comments Senator Buttars made from the get-go on this bill. That just taints the whole constitutionality of the thing." This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page A1. |
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