Florida school board preparing new attempt to ban gay student group

Despite an ongoing federal lawsuit challenging the Okeechobee County School Board's banning of a Gay-Straight Organization the board is moving to tighten its rules governing clubs. In April US District Court Judge K. Michael Moore issued a preliminary injunction ordering the school district to allow the club to meet on school property while the civil rights lawsuit is being heard. Nevertheless, the school board is moving forward with new regulations to bar what it calls "sex-based clubs," a move the American Civil Liberties Union which is representing the gay students at the school says is aimed at trying to skirt the injunction. The board will hold a final vote next month on the new regulations. The ACLU says if the measures pass it will return to court for a new injunction and seek legal costs. The students began the struggle to form the club in 2006 after student Yasmin Gonzalez and her girlfriend were told they could not attend the school prom as a couple. The rejection was one of several incidents targeting LGBT students at Okeechobee High School. The school blocked from meeting on campus and the students sought the help of the ACLU which filed the federal lawsuit. The ACLU argues that the Equal Access Act stipulates that when a school allows any non-curricular club to meet on campus, it must allow all non-curricular clubs to meet on campus. But school district attorney David Gibbs says that the Equal Access Act can't be used in the case of a GSA and furthermore Florida law requires schools to teach abstinence, "while teaching the benefits of monogamous heterosexual marriage." In granting the preliminary injunction Judge Moore said that the school board's attorneys had failed to show that the GSA was a "sex-based club".