Gay Students Decry Consent Policy for Clubs

GLENDALE — Gay and lesbian Hoover High School students protested at a school board meeting Tuesday against a proposed new rule requiring students to obtain their parents’ permission to join campus clubs, saying it is designed to block them from establishing the school’s first official homosexual club.

Glendale school district officials said the proposed new policy--which was discussed by the school board Tuesday night but has not yet been approved--is not aimed at the gay club, but is designed to improve communication between administrators and parents.

But the gay and lesbian students say few youths would join the club if they were required to reveal their homosexuality to their parents.

“If you had to get permission, the whole purpose of our group would be defeated,” said Javier Hernandez, 18, a senior. “This is a peer support group. Some people are still coming to terms with who they are, and they don’t feel comfortable enough to tell their parents yet.

“Parents have never been told what clubs their kids are in. We’re being singled out.”

School district officials say it is a coincidence that the new rule is being proposed at a time when a gay and lesbian group is affected. District spokesman Vic Pallos said that Supt. Robert Sanchis proposed the new regulation because “parents have a right to know what their kids do at school, since we are responsible for them.”

“Parents are required to sign off on their kids’ classes, their field trips, and they approve whether students can be in sports programs, and this is just an extension of that,” Pallos said.

“[Sanchis] is not trying to exclude anyone, or discriminate against anyone. He’s just trying to improve communication.”

At Tuesday’s board meeting, several parents with gay children also spoke against the proposed parent-consent rule.

Leonor Holmstrom said her daughter was “coming to terms with herself as a lesbian” while a student at Hoover High, but did not “come out” until several years later in college.

“I asked my daughter, ‘Would you have asked me to sign a permission slip?’ ” Holmstrom said. “She said, ‘No way, Mom. No way.’ ”

The parental-consent rule, drafted by Dick Fisher, an attorney for the district, would apply to all clubs on campus. Those at Hoover range from traditional language and sports clubs to Islamic and Christian clubs to groups that hold peer support sessions.

About 15 gay and lesbian students have been meeting informally at lunchtime for about two years, dubbing themselves the “Project 10 group” after a program for gays and lesbian students in the Los Angeles Unified School District. They only recently applied to the principal’s office to become an official club, Hernandez said.

Leah Strand, a Hoover senior, said administrators and parents perceive the group as a “gay club,” but some heterosexuals attend its meetings.

“They want to think it’s perverted because the majority of the kids in there are gay. These so-called righteous people don’t want to deal with them,” Strand said. “The word ‘sex’ hardly ever comes up. The discussions are all about the kids’ feelings, and that’s why they need to stay confidential.”

Hoover High Principal Theresa Saunders said rifts have emerged on campus over the issue in recent weeks, not only among the students but also among teachers. Some teachers oppose the formation of a gay students club.

“That sentiment is out there, and the reverse is also out there, that this is the ‘90s and people should be more open,” Saunders said.

“This is is a powder keg. It has been portrayed by . . the students involved that it is directed against them, but it isn’t. It is much broader than that. People are very emotional on both sides of the issue,” she said.

Susan Howe, a math teacher, said she believes school is the wrong place to discuss “issues of morality.”

“As a teacher I am an advocate for having students voice their opinion,” Howe said. “But when we get into areas that involve morality, the school is not the place for that; it belongs in the home.”

The proposed policy was also criticized Tuesday by the ACLU, the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, a nonprofit legal aid organization for gay civil rights issues, and the liberal group People for the American Way.

In a joint letter to the school board, the three organizations said the timing of when a student “comes out” to his or her parents “cannot be legislated.”

“In an ideal world, all teenagers would feel comfortable discussing anything with their parents . . . but we live in a world in which a parent’s reaction to a child’s revelation that he or she is gay is often to throw the child out.”