Text
TAMPA - An effort to ban Gay-Straight Alliance clubs from Hillsborough County schools accelerated Tuesday when a group of parents wheeled a child's wagon to the front of a School Board meeting.
Inside the wagon were petitions, wrapped in red ribbons, signed by about 1,100 people who object to the school district's allowing Gay-Straight Alliances. The petitions asked board members to ban the clubs, which meet some school days in a handful of Hillsborough high schools, including Newsome and Brandon.
Alice Wilkinson, who has two children at Newsome, delivered the petitions and urged board members to learn more about the clubs. She said she represents parents who believe the "sexually oriented" clubs are inappropriate for students and violate the district's policy of teaching abstinence.
"We are not a group of right-wing anything," she said. "It's so easy to jump to the conclusion we are against gay people."
Gay-Straight Alliances are common in high schools around the nation, where they are allowed under federal laws that protect the free speech of students. If schools allow some nonacademic clubs, including those in which students study the Bible, they cannot discriminate against other clubs.
Board members did not respond directly to Wilkinson or the petitions. They said a district committee is studying all special-interest clubs.
Board member Candy Olson said she has not formed an opinion about whether Gay-Straight Alliances should be allowed in the schools.
Real American parents know their kids should be taught proper values and life skills and don't want their children recruited by and exposed to elitist homosexual propaganda.
These people say these clubs aren't promoting the gay lifestyle; who are they kidding?
TAMPA - An effort to ban Gay-Straight Alliance clubs from Hillsborough County schools accelerated Tuesday when a group of parents wheeled a child's wagon to the front of a School Board meeting.
Inside the wagon were petitions, wrapped in red ribbons, signed by about 1,100 people who object to the school district's allowing Gay-Straight Alliances. The petitions asked board members to ban the clubs, which meet some school days in a handful of Hillsborough high schools, including Newsome and Brandon.
Alice Wilkinson, who has two children at Newsome, delivered the petitions and urged board members to learn more about the clubs. She said she represents parents who believe the "sexually oriented" clubs are inappropriate for students and violate the district's policy of teaching abstinence.
"We are not a group of right-wing anything," she said. "It's so easy to jump to the conclusion we are against gay people."
Gay-Straight Alliances are common in high schools around the nation, where they are allowed under federal laws that protect the free speech of students. If schools allow some nonacademic clubs, including those in which students study the Bible, they cannot discriminate against other clubs.
Board members did not respond directly to Wilkinson or the petitions. They said a district committee is studying all special-interest clubs.
Board member Candy Olson said she has not formed an opinion about whether Gay-Straight Alliances should be allowed in the schools.
Real American parents know their kids should be taught proper values and life skills and don't want their children recruited by and exposed to elitist homosexual propaganda.
These people say these clubs aren't promoting the gay lifestyle; who are they kidding?
