Archive for August, 2008

Members of a Holmes County, Florida community just don’t understand the problem.

Last September, a senior at Ponce de Leon High went to a teacher’s aide because several students were gay-bashing her, calling her “gross” and “sick”, along with other epithets. That aide referred the incident to Principal David Davis, who called the young woman into his office and told her to avoid those kids or he’d suspend her. Oh, and stop being a lesbian. Then he called her parents and outed her to them.

But Mr. Davis didn’t stop there. Here’s an incomplete list of what this high school principal did. (View the full report here (pdf) with thanks to the Box Turtle Bulletin.)

• Had a local minister lead a mandatory “morality assembly”. At the public high school. In response, students began to protest by wearing gay pride shirts, writing slogans on their arms, circulating petitions, shouting “Gay Pride” in the halls.
• Interrogated about 30 students he thought might be gay. Those who identified as gay were forbidden to talk about their homosexuality. They were also forbidden from wearing or having anything in their  possession that indicated “Gay Pride”.
• Nine days later, suspended a third of the interrogated students for belonging to a “secret society”.
• Told the mother of one of the students that he could have her daughter taken away and that “if there was a man in your house, your children were in church, you wouldn’t behaving any of these gay issues.”

Then one bright young woman, high school junior Heather Gillman, decided to take action. Her cousin was one of the suspended, and through an attorney, Ms. Gillman sent a letter to the board of education requesting clarification on Mr. Davis’ policy of suspending people for being gay or not hating gay people. Specifically, asked for permission to display rainbows, pink triangles, and/or one of the following phrases, all of which were expressly forbidden by Mr. Davis:

• Equal, Not Special Rights
• Gay? Fine By Me
• Gay Pride or GP
• I Support My Gay Friends
• I Support Gays
• God Loves Me Just the Way I Am
• I’m Straight, But I Vote Pro-Gay
• I Support Equal Marriage Rights
• Pro-Gay Marriage
• Sexual Orientation is Not a Choice. Religion, However, Is.

The school board replied that none of the images or slogans were permitted to be displayed on school grounds in any way because of Mr. Davis’ secret society argument, as well as the disruption it causes. I guess in Florida a t-shirt is more disruptive than outing a bunch of kids, which is a whole lot of disruptive.

Ms. Gillman contacted the ACLU, and with their help sued the school district. In late July, Northern Florida District Judge Richard Smoak ruled against the school district to the tune of the request: One dollar to Ms. Gillman, plaintiff’s court costs, and court mandated correction to the policy.

Now. Getting back to my original statement, members of the community don’t understand why everyone’s so het up, if you’ll pardon the phrase. In fact, they’re downright outraged that the board voted to remove Mr. Davis from his role as principal. According to an Associated Press article and a local TV news report, both published yesterday, they’re bewildered that this is such an issue.

Some even say that Davis is a hero. At last week’s school board meeting, a member of the crowd says, “He didn’t abandon you, but you abandoned him and you abandoned the values of the people of Holmes County.” Another claims that “David Davis is a fine man and good principal, and we are a gentle, peaceful, Christian, family-oriented community. We aren’t out to tar and feather anyone.”

This is a great example of the reason we need laws to protect members of the LGTB community. There are people in the United States who don’t understand that suspending someone from school for being gay or just liking gay people means that you are not “a fine man”. There are people who don’t see the problem with calling up a 17-year-old girl’s parents and telling them that she’s a lesbian. There are people who think it’s normal to tell a mother that he’ll take her child away because the child is gay.

And there are still places that will hire someone like David Davis.

Instead of just cutting Mr. Davis loose, this man who did such damage to the student body, they put him back in the classroom. What does he teach? In the ultimate of ironies, the Ponce de Leon school board assigned him to teach American Government.