The issue of a Gay/Lesbian/Bi/Straight Alliance at a local Anchorage high school (Dimond High) has just developed over the past week. I am copying the following article and hope you can send it to as many people as possible:

ANCHORAGE DAILY NEWS THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 1996

TEMPEST BREWS OVER GAY STUDENT CLUB
BY: Rachel D'Oro
Daily News Reporter

Formed to promote acceptance and awareness, a new club for gay and straight students at Dimond High School instead has sparked protests and debate.

A varsity hockey player had to sit out a game last week after he ripped down a poster announcing the Gay/Straight Alliance. Parents are calling principal Pat McDowell to question her sexual orientation and accuse the club of being a dating service. Some students are calling for an end to all noncurriculum clubs, even if it means sacrificing their own clubs, while others are coming to the new club's defense.

School district officials say the club is clearly allowed under district policies and federal law. But with a firestorm of controversy brewing,
School Board members expect to deal with the issue at their regular meeting Monday.

"There's been a very visceral reaction," McDowell said Wednesday. "We are all being assaulted over this thing."

Emotions have run high since the groups official startup November 13 when members put up club fliers. A senior hockey player tore down a poster in front of a male club member, then made derogatory comments about him,
McDowell said. The athlete admitted what he did, and school officials barred him from playing the school's hockey game Friday night. McDowell said that contrary to rumors, no fight occurred during the incident.

Schools superintendent Bob Christal said the students legally established the club. They crafted a club constitution as required by a district policy adopted by the School Board three years ago when Barlett High students formed a Bible Club. The board policy conforms to the federal Equal Access Act, which prohibits schools from banning clubs for their religious, political or philosophical beliefs. "If you allow one noncurriculum club in, you have to allow all of them in," Christal said. "You can't pic and choose groups based on your own personal biases. That's how we're proceeding with this."

Since the news spread about the Dimond High Gay/Straight Alliance, however, McDowell and other school and district officials have been inundated with mostly negative calls from parents and students as well as the public. A local conservative radio talk show railed against the group as immoral and subversive.

School Board member David Werdal said the emerging controversy demands that the board review the district policy and federal law. An exception applies for clubs that distract students from learning, he said. And if a gay club is allowed, Werdal asked, what's to keep students from forming a neo-Nazi group or other extremist group? "We need to further define what will or won't work," he said. He added that he doesn't want to ban all noncurriculum clubs. Earlier this year, Salt Lake City schools quashed a gay student club by issuing a blanket ban on all extracurricular clubs.

"I have a difficulty with that," Werdal said. "I was in Chess Club in high school." Werdal said he is most bothered by one of the club's posters which asks students if they were gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender or curious. That seems like borderline recruitment to me," Werdal said (NOTE: poster displayed on television said "gay, lesbian, bisexual, straight or CONFUSED--alaskadan).

Nothing could be further from the club's goals, said its faculty sponsors, who will attend the morning meetings and clear all activities. The members are trying to fight prejudice and homophobia through education and awareness, said school psychologist Mary Duhoux, one of the club's three faculty sponsors. "The kids certainly talk about being discriminated against," she said. "And there's a certain amount of tension from this. Nobody expected quite this negative reaction. But it's always been hard for gay kids."

One Dimond High parent, Judith Hoersting, praised the group for granting equal access to gay, lesbian, bisexual and straight students. Hoersting,
whose son is a member of the alliance, criticized the media for sensationalizing a sensitive issue. "This isn't about morality; it's about civil rights," Hoersting said. "The club has a very pure intent: to help students by insulating and supporting them. These children have so much courage to come forward."

Whatever the outcome of the ongoing debate, school officials must not be led by their own feelings about an emotional issue, cautioned School Board President Debbie Ossiander. The federal law should be closely re-examined and then applied. "My personal feelings are irrelevant," Ossiander said. "We need to make sure the law is being followed. It also needs to be made clear the club is not something the school district promoted or supported. It's strictly student-led, and student-initiated. It's not subsidized by us, only to the degree that we're allowing our building to be used."

[The P.E.R.S.O.N. Project adds: the Superintendent of Anchorage's schools and its Board President can be reached at

Superintendent Bob Christal and School Board President Debbie Ossiander
Anchorage Schools
PO Box 196614
Anchorage, AK 99519-6614
Phone: 907- 333-9561
FAX 907-333-3322

-(Fax 907-258-2157, print run 103,831)
(E-MAIL: letterse@pop.adn.com) ]

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