Christian law group
sues
over school prayer
club, anti-gay speech
By Maryclaire Dale,
AP from pennlive.com from the Web, April 21, 2006
PHILADELPHIA, Apr. 20 -- A
national Christian law group sued a suburban school district on free-speech
grounds, saying the district censors prayer club members and threatens
discipline if students speak out against homosexuality.
The federal lawsuit against the Downingtown Area School District mirrors others
filed by the Alliance Defense Fund that accuse schools of implementing
"Orwellian speech code(s)."
The Scottsdale, Ariz.-based group also sued the Georgia Institute of Technology
this week over anti-gay speech, and has previously tried to block gay marriage
laws, anti-discrimination policies and workplace diversity training.
In the latest suit, the alliance said Downingtown schools improperly forced a
student group to drop explicitly Christian or Scriptural references from its
literature, and to meet as the "Prayer Club" instead of the preferred "Bible
Club."
Students also want the right to air anti-gay and other viewpoints free from
punishment outlined in the school's speech code.
"(The school district) favors the viewpoints of some clubs — e.g. the Gay
Straight Alliance — while banning only the viewpoints expressed by the Prayer
Club," states the suit, filed Wednesday on behalf of students Stephanie and
Steven Styer and others.
A school district spokeswoman did not immediately return a phone message
Thursday.
In February, the Alliance Defense Fund sued Penn State and Temple universities
saying their speech codes infringed on the right of conservative students to air
their political views.
John Davidson, legal director of Lambda Legal, a national gay-rights group, said
courts have drawn the line at speech that incites a disturbance.
"There's this very perverse attempt to paint people who are trying to impose
their religious views on other people as somehow the victims, because they don't
get to go up to other people and tell them they hate them," Davidson said.
"Since when do you have a right to be mean to other people, particularly when
you're dealing with children?" he said. "I just don't get that they think
this is something that resources should be put into."
Alliance Defense Fund lawyer David French said his clients are not fighting for
the right to be disruptive, but to express their religious and political views.
"Nobody has the right to go to somebody at a high school and yell in their
face," French said. "What the school seems to be doing here is saying one
side of an important cultural debate is welcome here and the other side is not."
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