Posted on 03/24/2003 6:56:49 AM PST by Stone Mountain
The price of coming out in Jacksonville
Outed to his parents then punished by school officials, a gay student goes to the ACLU
By Jennifer Barnett March 21, 2003
Let's get this out of the way first: This story is largely one-sided.
It's written primarily from the perspective of 14-year-old Thomas McLaughlin, his family and friends - their version of the harassment he says he's endured at the hands of several teachers and administrators at Jacksonville Junior High School because of his sexual orientation .
It does not include any response from the educators involved. Those that could be reached say they've been instructed to keep quiet by Pulaski County schools superintendent Don Henderson, who is investigating. Henderson won't say whether any of them have denied Thomas' allegations.
So if there is any evidence that would call into question the ninth-grader's version of events, it will not appear in this story.
Because this time, unlike the last highly publicized debacle at a Jacksonville school - the alleged on-campus gang rape of a high school student in January - no one is stepping up to publicly defend the accused.
McLaughlin, on the other hand, has the support of the local gay community, the ACLU, his family and many of his classmates. And they are more than happy to talk.
The basics, according to Thomas and his parents: About 18 months ago, a science teacher overheard Thomas refuse to deny to another boy that he was gay. The science teacher told Assistant Principal Sharon Hawk, who pulled Thomas out of class and told him he had until the end of the day to figure out how to tell his parents, or the school would do it for him. Later that afternoon, with Thomas in her office, a counselor at the school called Thomas' mother and told her he was having feelings for other males.
That incident started a string of harassment and discrimination at the hands of at least seven educators at Jacksonville Junior High, Thomas said.
o Four of them quoted scripture to him on several occasions.
o Two made him read Bible verses in their classroom or office.
o One, a typing teacher, repeatedly called him "abnormal" and "weird"
o He was forbidden to talk about being gay - deemed an "inappropriate subject" by school officials - or about punishment he received for breaking that rule, including having to read the Bible in Assistant Principal Emanuel McGhee's office.
o He was sent to the office repeatedly for talking about being gay, and was finally suspended for two days in January after a teacher overheard him tell a friend about what happened in McGhee's office.
A subsequent threat to suspend Thomas for four days because he discussed the two-day suspension with another friend finally pushed Thomas' parents, Delia and Tom McLaughlin, over the edge. Delia wrote a letter to the ACLU, and they began their investigation.
ACLU attorney Leslie Cooper sent a letter to Henderson last week outlining the McLaughlins' allegations and demanding that the school district address the situation. Thomas' story is full of such flagrant violations of Constitutional rights that Cooper said she doesn't see much chance of the situation progressing to a lawsuit.
"The law is pretty clear," she said. "It's quite shocking that school officials wouldn't know what they've done to violate Thomas' rights."
Among the demands in the ACLU's letter: That school officials clear Thomas' record of any disciplinary actions that stemmed from his being gay; that they not restrict students from speaking about their sexual orientation or any punishment they receive, and that school officials not read the Bible or preach to students at school.
Henderson said he would be prepared to respond by the ACLU's deadline Friday, if not before. As of Tuesday, though, he had not spoken with Thomas or his family, although he said he was trying to set up a meeting.
The things Thomas says happened to him are clearly against the law, Henderson said, but he's not ready to make any judgment on whether the allegations are true.
"What we're dealing with at this point are the allegations of a 14-year-old," Henderson said. "The facts of the case are yet to be proven. I'm not going to respond to allegations." In fact, however, there are witnesses, including Thomas' parents, to corroborate some of the allegations.
Two Pulaski County school board members - board Chairman Jeff Shaneyfelt and Pat O'Brien, who represents Jacksonville - said they aren't ready to accept Thomas' version without question, but said there's no room for debate over whether what he claims happened is wrong.
"Let's take, for example, reading from the Bible," said O'Brien, a prosecuting attorney. "If it turns out that's true I think it's legally inappropriate to do that at school for obvious reasons. But apparently that's not obvious to everyone.
"What if someone was a Muslim and was reading to a child from the Koran? No one's going to like that. That's the Pandora's box you open if you do any religious teaching at school."
Thomas' story starts about 18 months ago, in his eighth-grade science class. As he told it earlier this week, sitting on his family's couch next to three female friends from school, he revealed himself as a largely typical 14-year-old, equipped with a generous dose of lip and a determination to let as much of the harassment as possible roll off his back.
One fall day in 2001, Thomas said, another boy in the science class asked him if he liked a certain girl. Thomas's response: There's a reason he didn't like the girl or any other girls in the school.
"He asked me if it was because I was gay," said Thomas, then 13. "I said 'If I am, I am. If I'm not, I'm not.'"
The science teacher overheard, and reported Thomas' comment to Assistant Principal Sharon Hawk. Thomas said she pulled him out of class and told him he had until the end of the day to figure out how he'd tell his parents he was gay - or the school would do it for him.
"I was stunned," Thomas said. "I don't really know how I felt."
Later that day, with Thomas standing beside her, counselor Jimmie Brooks called Thomas' mother, Delia McLaughlin.
"She didn't come out and say he was gay, she said he was having feelings about other males," McLaughlin said.
McLaughlin and her husband, Tom, were shocked at the news - although they'd suspected before that Thomas was homosexual - and angry that the school had interfered. But they didn't take any action then.
"At that time I was more concerned about [Thomas]," Delia McLaughlin said.
Hawk, reached at home, said she'd be happy to talk about Thomas' situation - as soon as district officials gave her permission.
Thomas said Hawk and the counselor justified their actions by saying his homosexuality was something his parents should know about.
That's not only wrong, it's potentially dangerous, said Brandon Overton, 23, a family friend of the McLaughlins who is also gay.
"To have the threat of your principal calling your parents to tell them something that could make or break you having a home to live in at 13, 14, years old - that's something no kid should ever have to be put through," Overton said.
An openly gay eighth-grader might seem like cannon fodder at a public junior high school, but Thomas said most of his classmates quickly got past the shock, and he has no shortage of friends. Some students, mostly boys, say things sometimes - one calls him "faggot" whenever they pass in the hall - but most seem not to care, he said.
Some of his teachers, however, weren't so accepting.
The science teacher, whom the ACLU letter does not identify by name, later wrote him a four-page letter advising him to read Bible passages about homosexuality. He said a vocational teacher, Jessica Guerin, made him squat by her desk and read from her Bible about Sodom and Gomorrah.
Thomas kept those incidents to himself for months.
"I was scared," he said. "Basically, I thought if I did take action they'd come back and stab me in the back, retaliate."
But the harassment intensified this school year, Thomas said. Last fall, he said, typing teacher Linda Derden, asked Thomas to stay after class.
"She said, 'Do you know what the Bible says about that?'" Thomas said. "I said, 'I've heard.'"
Derden began to quote scripture to him, Thomas said, and he told her he had to get to his next class and left.
The idea of other people quoting the Bible to her son particularly angers Delia McLaughlin.
"He's been raised in church," she said. "That stuff should come from us or his pastor."
The McLaughlins attend First United Methodist Church in Jacksonville, and their pastor has been supportive, Delia McLaughlin said.
In November, Delia McLaughlin said, choir teacher Joan Blann called her at home on a Sunday night before Thomas and other choir members were to take an off-campus trip. Blann told her she didn't want Thomas talking about his homosexuality because it would give the school a bad name. She also told McLaughlin she'd given Thomas some scriptures to read.
Not long after that incident, Thomas said Linda Derden overheard him talking with a female student about a boy they both thought was cute.
"She said, 'That's it, I'm sending you to the office.'"
That meant the office of Assistant Principal Emanuel McGhee. McGhee sat Thomas down and pulled out his Bible, Thomas said.
"He asked me, 'Do you know you're fearfully and wonderfully made?'" Thomas said. "I said, 'Well, I do now, I guess.' He said 'How do you know you're gay? You have so many options.'"
Thomas said McGhee made him read aloud from the Bible, and then gave him a tract from his church and asked Thomas to close his eyes and pray to be saved.
"I said, 'I need to go to class,'" Thomas said.
A couple of days later, Thomas told a friend, Tiffany Eller, what had happened. She dragged him back to McGhee's office, and the three argued about whether what McGhee had done was right.
"I was appalled," Tiffany said. "I asked him, 'Why did you make Thomas read the Bible?' He said, 'I was just letting him see being gay is a sin.'"
"'Condemned to hell,' that's what he said," Thomas added. "I just told him how I felt, how he hurt me doing that, how there's a separation of church and state."
Thomas told his parents about the Bible-reading incident. Derden had also requested to meet with them, so the McLaughlins made an appointment with Derden and McGhee.
McGhee said he tells all his students they're "fearfully and wonderfully made," a quote from the Psalms. Derden reportedly said she runs her typing class like a business environment, and discussions about topics like homosexuality are not appropriate.
"She told me that too," Thomas added. "I told her, 'Not if I worked at a gay magazine.'"
Soon after that, in January, Thomas was suspended for two days, officially for insubordination and harassing a teacher, after Derden overheard him telling another classmate about what happened in McGhee's office. Administrators threatened to expel him if he talked about the suspension, Thomas said.
Two days after he returned from being suspended, administrators did indeed threaten to suspend him for four days. Delia McLaughlin said she then had a conference with Derden and Principal Brenda Allen. McGhee was there initially, but excused himself.
"He was pretty rude," Delia McLaughlin said. "He said, 'Why can't he just come to class? I'm sick of him being in my office.' Well, I [was] too. That was the day I decided I'm not taking this anymore. That weekend I sat down and wrote a letter to the ACLU."
The frustration had been building all school year, Delia and Tom McLaughlin said. They received call after call that Thomas was in the office again, in trouble for talking about "inappropriate subjects."
"They won't let him talk about anything," Delia McLaughlin said. "His free speech has just gone down the drain."
Free speech is just the tip of the iceberg, the ACLU's Cooper said.
"This case involves the school violating a slew of Constitutional rights," she said: freedom of religion, equal protection and invasion of privacy.
There is at least one other case of a government entity being sued for threatening to out a teen-ager to his parents, Cooper said. That case, which involved the police in a Pennsylvania town, ended with the young man shooting himself in the head rather than face his parents finding out about his homosexuality.
And there are plenty of cases of school officials failing to stop harassment of gay students by other students, she said.
This is the only case she knows of, however, where school officials actually outed a student to his parents, and then perpetrated further harassment themselves.
McLaughlin's friend, Brandon Overton, said that doesn't mean it's never happened before.
"This is more common than any parent could ever know," Overton said. Usually, young people are simply too scared to do anything about it, he said.
"(Thomas) is braver at 14 than I am at 23," Overton said.
Thomas said he's had more positive than negative response at school to news that his family might file a lawsuit. And Delia McLaughlin said that of the four phone calls they'd gotten since the news broke last week, all had been supportive.
That leaves the McLaughlins waiting only for school officials to make their move. What do they want?
"I don't want them to chastise gay students," Delia McLaughlin said. "They shouldn't be passing on their religious views. We want to see the policy changed. These children are equal. They're all equal in God's eyes - yes, I'm saying that, I'm a Christian too."
Thomas said he wants more teachers to accept their students "for who they are, not what they are," and possibly a program for gay students at his school.
Neither of them mentions wanting an apology.
"I don't think 'I'm sorry' is good enough," Delia McLaughlin said. "They need to change their attitude. They need to change their policies."
And, tearing up for the first time, she adds that she hopes that hearing about her family's experience will "wake some parents up." She tells about another boy Thomas' age whose parents recently found out by accident that he was gay. His mother now calls him names like "little queer," she said.
"He was afraid to stay home," she said. "He was afraid of what they might do."
Thomas, however, showed almost no emotion as he talked about what he's gone through in the last 18 months. He eventually admitted that he did cry once after Derden yelled at him and called him "abnormal," and his friends said they've seen him sad and depressed. His grades have also slipped from the B's he used to earn, because he spends more of his time worrying than doing schoolwork.
But mostly, he said, he tries not to think about it.
"It's not something I want to dwell on," he said. "The only way to go is forward."
Earlier the article states that they attend a united methodist church. The vast majority of untied methodists are no longer Christian. IIRC they ordain practicing homosexuals. How can you be a follower of Christ and then support sin that He is against? Since she seems to support homosexual behaviour I sincerely doubt that she is Christian.
Admittedly the school did wrong here, they should never have pressed the kid into confessing as a pervert. They should have gotten him into therapy where his life may have been saved. Likewise the other kid mentioned (near the end of the article) should be in therapy, There's still a chance for him to lead a healthy life.
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