GLAD attorney: Lexington schools lawsuit has had chilling effect on public schools

Nima Eshghi, an attorney for Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders (GLAD), told attendees at the Greater Boston PFLAG annual meeting Sept. 24 that the federal lawsuit by a pair of families against the town of Lexington for including LGBT-themed books in the elementary school curriculum has had a chilling effect on other schools. She said last spring a lesbian couple with a daughter in a Watertown elementary school contacted GLAD to complain that the school had pulled the book And Tango Makes Three, a true story about a pair of male penguins that became mates and raised a baby penguin, from the library shelves in response to parent protests. The couple spoke with the librarian and the school principal and urged them to restore the book to the library, but they were rebuffed.

"Ultimately the school said, 'We just don't want to be sued like Lexington.' And they kept the book out," said Eshghi. She said the couple chose to pull their daughter out of the school. Eshghi said GLAD did not get involved directly in the situtation, and she does not know which school the couple's child attended.

Eshghi said opponents of LGBT-inclusive curricula, both in Massachusetts and nationally, have exploited state parental notification laws around sex education by asking schools and courts to apply them to any discussion of LGBT families or people.

"What these parents groups, who are really fueled by a larger right wing establishment, are trying to do is take very, very narrow opt-out and parent notification rules that exist at the middle school and high school level purely for sex education, and only to be used in certain narrow circumstances, and they are trying to take that, bring it down into the kindergarten, first and second grade level where kids are not talking about sex. They are talking about who's in a family. ... They're not objecting to studying families. They're objecting only to certain families. They want their children opted out of learning about certain families," said Eshghi.

She told the crowd gathered at the Congregational Church of Needham that GLAD has learned that some schools in Massachusetts have done just what the families in the Lexington case have demanded from Lexington Public Schools, notifying parents with objections to homosexuality about any LGBT-related materials and allowing them to opt their children out of any discussion of LGBT people and families. She said many schools will grow tired of expending resources to screen for any reference to LGBT people in their curriculum, and they will follow the Watertown school's example and do away with the LGBT books. GLAD is filing an amicus brief in the case, she said, because the organization worries it could have a chilling effect on discussions of LGBT people in the classroom.

Last February U.S. District Court Judge Mark Wolf dismissed the Lexington case brought by the two families, David and Tonia Parker and Robert and Robin Wirthlin, but the families have appealed that decision. Eshghi explained that one of the core arguments Wolf used in his dismissal is that part of the mission of public schools is to inculcate the value of diversity in the students. Eshghi said in its amicus brief GLAD will go farther, arguing that the Supreme Court has ruled repeatedly over the years that one of the missions of public schools is to bring together diverse groups.

She said GLAD is filing the brief "so [schools] can have some language coming from our briefs that we hope will make it into this case so they can offensively say, you know what, it's not just that we're permitted to teach this material; it's that we are mandated to teach this material. This is our mission, and this mission is actually rooted in larger constitutional principles about what the role of public schools is."

Eshghi spoke at the meeting as part of a panel discussion on the future of LGBT rights advocacy in Massachusetts following the end of the marriage battle. The other two panelists were state Sen. Robert Antonioni (D-Leominster), co-chair of the Joint Committee on Education, and educational consultant Kim Westheimer, former director of the state's Safe Schools program. The meeting also featured the formal presentation by PFLAG to the Lexington High School gay/straight alliance (GSA) of the book Courting Equality, which documents the same-sex marriage battle in Massachusetts. The presentation marked the launch of a Greater Boston PFLAG initiative to offer the book, written by Pat Gozemba and Karen Kahn with photos by Bay Windows photographer Marilyn Humphries, to every public high school GSA or high school library in the state (see "PFLAG launches book program," Sept. 20, 2007).

The meeting also drew a small number of opponents of LGBT rights. During Eshghi's speech PFLAG volunteers noticed Brian Camenker, founder of the anti-gay group MassResistance, which has advocated on behalf of the Parkers and Wirthlins and which opposes any LGBT-related content in public schools, standing in the back of the hall wearing a baseball cap with the brim pulled low over his face. Stanley Griffith, president of the Greater Boston PFLAG board, directed Camenker to leave the meeting, and he complied. Prior to the start of the meeting another man, who declined to identify himself and refused to sign in, as was required of attendees, also was asked to leave. Griffith told the man the meeting was open to Greater Boston PFLAG members and members of the public who supported the organization's goals. The man left before the meeting started.

During his speech on the panel Antonioni told attendees that a piece of legislation filed at the request of MassResistance, which would change the state's parental "opt-out" law on sex education into an "opt-in" law and expand the subjects covered by that law to include anything related to LGBT issues, is dead in the water.

"I think you'll find that I and my co-chair, a very bright woman from Somerset, the southeastern part of the state, [Rep.] Pat Haddad, in the House, do not support that change, so I don't think it's very likely that bill's going to be going anywhere," said Antonioni.

He urged attendees to ask their representatives and senators to support efforts this session to pass legislation that would add a health component to the state's core curriculum. He said that many of the opponents of that effort object specifically to the sex-ed component of a health curriculum, and they fear it will include information on LGBT sexuality. Camenker himself testified against the health curriculum bill last May (see "Nazis? AIDS? Camenker Must Be Talking About The Gays Again," May 31).

"Very often I find that people don't want to discuss the facts, don't want to discuss the proliferation of AIDS in our society or the danger to young people that engage in reckless behavior," said Antonioni. "They don't want to talk about that and very often will deny evidence that comes from very learned people, well-respected studies, and all in the name quite candidly of defeating what they perceive to be the homosexual agenda. Very disturbing."

The evening ended with a slide presentation by Westheimer primarily drawing from data on LGB youth from the state's Youth Risk Behavior Survey (the state-administered survey does not include questions about transgender youth). The results showed that as of the 2005 survey LGB youth are disproportionably likely to attempt suicide, particularly if they have been targeted for bullying. Yet the survey also found that between 1995 and 2005 there has been a notable decrease among LGB youth of suicide attempts, physical fights at school and incidents where LGB youth are threatened or injured with a weapon at school.

Westheimer said that the data from the survey shows that a number of factors contribute to the likelihood that LGB youth will be safe at school and that they will make responsible choices about their health, particularly about sex and drug use. Those factors include good relationships with family, support from teachers and staff, academic success, and health and HIV/AIDS education. Westheimer praised PFLAG for advocating for those factors.

"We know that there are certain things that can make a difference in the lives of LGBT youth, and many of those things are things that we can thank PFLAG for doing in schools," said Westheimer.