Money Quotes:
Board President Randy Marquardt, who voted against recognizing the GSA as a club, said he didn't think the board should base its decision on the threat of legal action.
He said he didn't see the need for the group to be school-sponsored.
"I just don't see how we're not in compliance by not allowing this to remain a non-school-sponsored club," he said. (Sic.)
According to the district's criteria for school-sponsored clubs, clubs must have a curricular tie, national or state affiliation, student appeal and a volunteer adviser. In GSA's application for school sponsorship, its purpose is listed as combating bullying and harassment and "to provide an emotionally and physically healing learning environment for people of all genders and sexual orientations."
For a curriculum connection, the group listed six courses in which homosexual issues are discussed and studied. Before the new policy, Fincke (The attorney for the GLA) said student groups were informally recognized and that, as far as he could tell, every other group that had requested recognition by the school had received it.
In addition to having access to school facilities for meetings, he said club recognition from the school would allow the GSA to use school bulletin boards for notices, get a page in the yearbooks and set up tables in school hallways for fundraisers.
"It's true second-class citizenship," he said of the GSA's current non-club status since 2002, "and it's wrong."According to one attendee who commented on the JSOnline article, Board member Dave Wiegand said:
"I also know of a good psychologist if one would want to leave this lifestyle."Weigand and Marquardt successful ran for the school board as a two person coalition of fiscal conservative in 2010 . Marquardt is the membership chairman of the Washington County Republican Party.
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