Posted on 04/18/2007 2:47:19 PM PDT by presidio9
Two Neuqua Valley High School students won’t be able to wear T-shirts saying “Be Happy, Not Gay,” to school tomorrow following a judge’s ruling.
U.S. District Judge William T. Hart ruled in favor of the high school yesterday on a preliminary injunction that would have allowed the students to wear the shirts the day after today’s National Day of Silence.
On the Day of Silence, students can refrain from speaking as an effort to protest discrimination against homosexuals.
The Arizona-based Alliance Defense Fund is representing Heidi Zamecnik of Naperville and Alexander Nuxoll of Bolingbrook in a lawsuit that claims Zamecnik’s rights were violated last year when she wasn’t allowed to wear the shirt in school.
The Alliance Defense Fund, a conservative Christian litigation group, will appeal the judge’s decision on the preliminary injunction to the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, attorney Jonathan Scruggs said. The lawsuit is still pending.
Scruggs said the school was violating the students’ rights to free speech by banning the shirt.
“The school cannot silence speech merely because some people find it offensive,” Scruggs said. “We believe that’s the core of what the First Amendment protects.”
Jack Canna, an attorney for Indian Prairie Unit School District 204, said banning the shirt was part of a policy “to preserve the notion that kids shouldn’t make negative or derogatory comments about other students.”
Messages left by the Associated Press with the school district and the high school were not returned in time for this story.
Kids should wear it anyways.
What fantasy world do these people live in? All in all, it's just another Brick in the Wall....
Free-speech is limited at public schools, so they can forbid those kinds of shirts...but I find it funny.
Hey, Teacher, leave us kids alone!
Parents should just pull the kid out of school and homeschool.
The best way to kill public schools and the liberal unions is leave their playground. Leave them no one to teach. We DON’T need THEIR “education”. We don’t need them medicating and meddling in our children’s sex lives and confusing them. The culture does enough of that already.
Che Guevera T-shirts offend me. Are they A-ok?
They don’t need no education
Judge Hart
Appointed 1982 by President Reagan
judging by the rates of VD, drug abuse, alcoholism, depression, and others maladies, it is a true statement that gays are not generally happy as compared to other groups.
It is neither. It merely is a clear declination to endorse. THAT is what the school is fighting against.
Senior District Judge, since June 1, 1996
Appointed 1982 by President Reagan
You can’t have your pudding...
I get your point...it’s the vagueness of the offense?
Public schools are an odd apple, but I do believe they should operate with a level of self-regulation. I’m sure they’ll alway err on the liberal side of ideals. To me, the preference would always be to have private schools, and for the parents to decide what sort of standards are acceptable.
Schools used to defend American institutions and that which was good and good for society.
Today they defend the debauched.
And on days it's in the wash should wear one stating "Be a Pixie, not a Fairy".
The first Amendment was written just so people could/would be offended. Else, why have it?
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