Gay student won't give up fight for club
The Okeechobee High senior takes her case to court despite insults and fierce foes.
Maya Bell
Orlando Sentinel Staff Writer
OKEECHOBEE -- She has been called an abomination to God, a sinner who's going to hell, an attention-seeker bent on disrupting the tranquillity of this rural cattle town on the north shore of Florida's largest lake.
Yet Yasmin Gonzalez, a 17-year-old senior at Okeechobee High School, has no intention of backing down.
"There are two ways you can look at this: me being courageous or me being stupid," Gonzalez said, sitting in a park near the school. "But I don't want underclassmen to go through what I did. No one should have to."
Two weeks ago, Gonzalez became the first Florida student to sue her principal and School Board for the right to establish a Gay-Straight Alliance, a school-based club that would promote tolerance and understanding of gay people.
She has gotten very little of either since. Instead, she exposed deep conflicts over homosexuality in this Bible Belt town of 5,500.
On one side is the American Civil Liberties Union and students such as Heather Zipperer, a 17-year-old senior who doesn't understand why the proposed club has generated such an uproar.
"I think they're embarrassing themselves by taking it this far. It shouldn't be such a big deal," Zipperer said. "Those kids can't help who they are. And it's wrong to tell them they're wrong."
Foes speak out
On the other side are the School Board, the local ministerial association and residents such as Terri Rubio who support Superintendent Patricia Cooper for nixing the club. She did so even under threat of a lawsuit and despite a federal law that has paved the way for more than 3,200 alliances to spring up in schools across the nation.
"The ACLU needs to go back to Washington, where people are more tolerant, and leave our nice little churchgoing town alone," said Rubio, 33, an insurance clerk whose children attend Okeechobee High.
Okeechobee administrators would not comment. But Mathew Staver, president of the Longwood-based Liberty Counsel, which advised the School Board on its options, said they share Rubio's overriding fear.
"The concern is that it would teach not just tolerance and acceptance but promote homosexuality and sexual activity," Staver said.
A former teacher, Kevin Jennings, founder of the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network, has heard that argument plenty of times since starting the first Gay-Straight Alliance in Massachusetts in 1988. He said it still rings hollow.
The clubs exist, he said, to make schools a place where all children can feel safe, allowing them to focus on learning rather than on their fears of harassment and bullying.
"So that tells me there is something other than the best interest of the students at play in Okeechobee, and I'll call it what it is," Jennings said. "It's politics and bigotry."
Many of the 115 school clubs across Florida, which include 20 in Central Florida, began under similar controversy. Conservative Christians have campaigned against them in Charlotte and Pinellas counties, and last year more than 1,000 parents signed a petition calling for a ban in Hillsborough. The School Board there is now considering requiring parental approval for joining any after-school club.
But for the most part, the clubs have been allowed to exist and even flourish -- because the law is on their side.
"When we started last year, there were grumblings from some teachers who didn't think it belonged in school, and some parents complained," recalled Nancy Kendall, an English teacher and sponsor of Apopka High's alliance. "But today we have 35 members and a float in the homecoming parade."
Ironically, Congress opened the door to the clubs in 1984 by passing the Equal Access Act, which allowed student-prayer groups and Bible classes to meet in public schools during noninstructional hours. But it did so by requiring schools that permit any student-initiated noncurricular activity, such as a chess club or a service club, to allow all extracurricular activities.
In 1990, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the law, prompting court after court to rule it applies to the Gay-Straight Alliances, too.
"The bottom line is Okeechobee administrators had a moral and legal obligation to obey the law and stop sending the signal that their gay and lesbian students are second-class citizens," said ACLU attorney Robert Rosenwald.
He said Okeechobee High has listed several noncurriculum-related clubs on its Web site, including a Crime Watch and a Key Club.
Depends on definition
But the Liberty Counsel's Staver, who has not been retained to fight the lawsuit, said the board and administration have concluded that every club on campus is related to the curriculum. As such, he said, the litigation likely will center on "how to define curriculum-related versus noncurriculum-related" clubs.
Gonzalez and Amber Sewell, 17, one of the straight members in the alliance, said they regularly hear announcements for the school's crochet club on the public-address system. But what they never hear, they said, are admonitions from teachers who overhear or see students making derogatory comments about gay students.
"I got in trouble in summer school for writing 'Amber loves Jose,' but they say they can't do anything about someone writing . . . 'Gays should die' on the bulletin board," Sewell said. "Come on. That's why we need this club."
Gonzalez said she asked Principal Toni Wiersma for permission to start the alliance soon after school started in September. A month later, the lawsuit alleges, Wiersma turned down her request, first saying the school had too many noncurricular clubs and then saying the school did not allow any noncurricular clubs.
Contacted ACLU
By that time, Gonzalez already had been in touch with the ACLU. She had contacted the organization last year when the school refused to allow her to take a girlfriend to the prom. This year, she was permitted to take a girl to the homecoming dance but, she said, she was fed up with threats, friends getting beaten up and insults even from teachers.
So, on Nov. 15, she sued in federal court. Since then, some of the 60 students who expressed interest in the club have backed down -- pushed, Gonzalez's mother, Frankie Michelle Gonzalez, said, by parents who are afraid their child's participation will undermine their businesses. Afraid of losing her job, the club adviser has skipped two meetings held off campus, Gonzalez said.
Gonzalez says, she, too, has thought of giving up, but then she reminds herself of the underclassmen at Okeechobee's only high school.
"This club isn't going to benefit me because this is my senior year, and I know they'll drag this out as long as they can," she said. "But, honestly, I think it will be worth it -- one day."
Maya Bell
Orlando Sentinel Staff Writer
OKEECHOBEE -- She has been called an abomination to God, a sinner who's going to hell, an attention-seeker bent on disrupting the tranquillity of this rural cattle town on the north shore of Florida's largest lake.
Yet Yasmin Gonzalez, a 17-year-old senior at Okeechobee High School, has no intention of backing down.
"There are two ways you can look at this: me being courageous or me being stupid," Gonzalez said, sitting in a park near the school. "But I don't want underclassmen to go through what I did. No one should have to."
Two weeks ago, Gonzalez became the first Florida student to sue her principal and School Board for the right to establish a Gay-Straight Alliance, a school-based club that would promote tolerance and understanding of gay people.
She has gotten very little of either since. Instead, she exposed deep conflicts over homosexuality in this Bible Belt town of 5,500.
On one side is the American Civil Liberties Union and students such as Heather Zipperer, a 17-year-old senior who doesn't understand why the proposed club has generated such an uproar.
"I think they're embarrassing themselves by taking it this far. It shouldn't be such a big deal," Zipperer said. "Those kids can't help who they are. And it's wrong to tell them they're wrong."
Foes speak out
On the other side are the School Board, the local ministerial association and residents such as Terri Rubio who support Superintendent Patricia Cooper for nixing the club. She did so even under threat of a lawsuit and despite a federal law that has paved the way for more than 3,200 alliances to spring up in schools across the nation.
"The ACLU needs to go back to Washington, where people are more tolerant, and leave our nice little churchgoing town alone," said Rubio, 33, an insurance clerk whose children attend Okeechobee High.
Okeechobee administrators would not comment. But Mathew Staver, president of the Longwood-based Liberty Counsel, which advised the School Board on its options, said they share Rubio's overriding fear.
"The concern is that it would teach not just tolerance and acceptance but promote homosexuality and sexual activity," Staver said.
A former teacher, Kevin Jennings, founder of the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network, has heard that argument plenty of times since starting the first Gay-Straight Alliance in Massachusetts in 1988. He said it still rings hollow.
The clubs exist, he said, to make schools a place where all children can feel safe, allowing them to focus on learning rather than on their fears of harassment and bullying.
"So that tells me there is something other than the best interest of the students at play in Okeechobee, and I'll call it what it is," Jennings said. "It's politics and bigotry."
Many of the 115 school clubs across Florida, which include 20 in Central Florida, began under similar controversy. Conservative Christians have campaigned against them in Charlotte and Pinellas counties, and last year more than 1,000 parents signed a petition calling for a ban in Hillsborough. The School Board there is now considering requiring parental approval for joining any after-school club.
But for the most part, the clubs have been allowed to exist and even flourish -- because the law is on their side.
"When we started last year, there were grumblings from some teachers who didn't think it belonged in school, and some parents complained," recalled Nancy Kendall, an English teacher and sponsor of Apopka High's alliance. "But today we have 35 members and a float in the homecoming parade."
Ironically, Congress opened the door to the clubs in 1984 by passing the Equal Access Act, which allowed student-prayer groups and Bible classes to meet in public schools during noninstructional hours. But it did so by requiring schools that permit any student-initiated noncurricular activity, such as a chess club or a service club, to allow all extracurricular activities.
In 1990, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the law, prompting court after court to rule it applies to the Gay-Straight Alliances, too.
"The bottom line is Okeechobee administrators had a moral and legal obligation to obey the law and stop sending the signal that their gay and lesbian students are second-class citizens," said ACLU attorney Robert Rosenwald.
He said Okeechobee High has listed several noncurriculum-related clubs on its Web site, including a Crime Watch and a Key Club.
Depends on definition
But the Liberty Counsel's Staver, who has not been retained to fight the lawsuit, said the board and administration have concluded that every club on campus is related to the curriculum. As such, he said, the litigation likely will center on "how to define curriculum-related versus noncurriculum-related" clubs.
Gonzalez and Amber Sewell, 17, one of the straight members in the alliance, said they regularly hear announcements for the school's crochet club on the public-address system. But what they never hear, they said, are admonitions from teachers who overhear or see students making derogatory comments about gay students.
"I got in trouble in summer school for writing 'Amber loves Jose,' but they say they can't do anything about someone writing . . . 'Gays should die' on the bulletin board," Sewell said. "Come on. That's why we need this club."
Gonzalez said she asked Principal Toni Wiersma for permission to start the alliance soon after school started in September. A month later, the lawsuit alleges, Wiersma turned down her request, first saying the school had too many noncurricular clubs and then saying the school did not allow any noncurricular clubs.
Contacted ACLU
By that time, Gonzalez already had been in touch with the ACLU. She had contacted the organization last year when the school refused to allow her to take a girlfriend to the prom. This year, she was permitted to take a girl to the homecoming dance but, she said, she was fed up with threats, friends getting beaten up and insults even from teachers.
So, on Nov. 15, she sued in federal court. Since then, some of the 60 students who expressed interest in the club have backed down -- pushed, Gonzalez's mother, Frankie Michelle Gonzalez, said, by parents who are afraid their child's participation will undermine their businesses. Afraid of losing her job, the club adviser has skipped two meetings held off campus, Gonzalez said.
Gonzalez says, she, too, has thought of giving up, but then she reminds herself of the underclassmen at Okeechobee's only high school.
"This club isn't going to benefit me because this is my senior year, and I know they'll drag this out as long as they can," she said. "But, honestly, I think it will be worth it -- one day."
1 Comments:
This article is a very well done article. I would say to Ms. Gonzalez keep up your efforts. There are many people watching what you do. If you feel sad or falling behind look towards other resources or voices, to give you the ability to go on. For exmaple look at the Palm Beach, Florida unblocked website articles. Remember also, change may not come with you around, but while your there do your best to help it. For when you are gone who knows who you have inspired to carry on your hope, "our hope", the dreams of many who came before us. You are carrying dreams that have been passed from the beginning of this country to now, you....we cannot let those dreamers, dreams disappear. I will continue to be in your corner and I will meet you in your dreams.
Sincerst Regards,
Kevin E. Washington
Post a Comment
<< Home