Consumer Law

Gay Rights: One Big Step Forward but Another Step Back

By Joe Consumer

You may know that President Obama signed the bill repealing "don't ask, don't tell" yesterday!  Yay!  The crowd to witness this historic bill signing ceremony was so large it was moved to an auditorium at the Department of the Interior.  One excited attendee yelled out ?Enlist us now.? 

(Which reminds me, did you happen to catch ?Public Speaking,? Martin Scorsese?s wonderful documentary about the hilarious writer Fran Lebowitz?   She says, ?I am stunned that the two greatest desires (among gay rights groups) are gay marriage and gays in the military. Usually, a fight for freedom is a fight for freedom. This is a fight for slavery. There are no more confining institutions than marriage and the military. People used to pretend to be gay to get out of the Army.?)

Sometimes you gotta laugh, right?  Of course, no one should be forced to hide who they are and you should be able to marry whomever you want.  And hopefully, repealing DADT will do much to move this backwards country forward when it comes to gay rights and general tolerance.  Goodness knows, we still need it.

We?ve covered the gay teen bullying crisis here before.  Now, a new situation has arisen. 

The Texas Civil Rights Project has brought a federal lawsuit on behalf of Barbara Wyatt, and her daughter, Skye, against Kilgore Independent School District, its assistant softball coach Rhonda Fletcher, head softball coach Cassandra Newell, and assistant athletic director Douglas Duke.

According to the lawsuit, in March 2009, Skye went to the softball field to meet with her teammates. Allegedly, the coaches dismissed the team and led Skye into an empty locker room, locked the door behind them and then started "interrogating" her. The suit said claims the girl was threatened, and accused of having an alleged sexual relationship with a female student.

Here's the complaint, which says that the coach then threatened to call her mother and out her.  She then did, in fact, call her mother, telling her to meet in a field.  And in an accusatory tone, the coach informed her mother her daughter was gay and was dating an 18-year-old girl.  Gawker writes, "usually not how you want your mom to find out you're gay":

After outing S.W. to her mother, Newell and Fletcher kicked her off the softball team. This all happened in March; Wyatt tried repeatedly to file complaints to the school board about Newell and Fletcher's behavior, but got nowhere.

Kilgore's superintendent of schools Jody Clements told the Houston Press that outing minor students against there will is the appropriate way to deal with gay kids: "We feel confident we handled it the right way. But that's why there is a legal system. We'll proceed and let the courts decide what was right."

Said the teen's attorney, 

"We think it's an important issue and it's an upsetting situation, but this is an area where the law is clear," said Nick Jackson, an attorney with the Civil Rights Project.

"Kids commit suicide over it," said Wyatt. "If we don't want to continue to lose our children to these types of issues, then we have to do some changing."

Full post as published by ThePopTort on December 23, 2010 (boomark / email).