A report om Human Rights Watch lls on the ernment of St. Vcent to overturn lonial-era anti-gay laws that have led to a recent wave of vlence and genr discrimatn on the small Caribbean island.
Contents:
- ANTI-GAY CURRICULUM LAWS
- NAMIBIAN PARLIAMENT APPROV ANTI-GAY LAW SPE URT LG
- WILL KENYA BE THE LATT TO PASS ANTI-GAY LAW?
- CALIFORNIA STILL HAS AN ANTI-GAY MARRIAGE LAW ON THE BOOKS. VOTERS ULD REMOVE NEXT YEAR
- LGBT RIGHTS AI: WILL KENYA BE THE LATT TO PASS ANTI-GAY LAW?
- HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: ANTI-GAY LAWS PROMOTE VLENCE, DISCRIMATN ST. VCENT
ANTI-GAY CURRICULUM LAWS
” The Article the term “homosexualy, ” rather than ls stigmatizg terms like “same-sex timacy, ” “same-sex relatnships, ” or “lbian, gay, and bisexual inti, ” bee als wh laws that discrimate simultaneoly agast each of the aspects of LGBT people’s liv. By g the terms “anti-gay” and “homosexualy, ” I do not mean to downplay the existence of lbian, bisexual, or transgenr people—nor to ny that the laws facially discrimate agast lbians and bisexuals, or that they are applied agast transgenr people a discrimatory manner. Pol’y 465, 467 (2012) (seven stat); #DontEraseUs: A Campaign to End Anti-LGBT Curriculum Laws, Lambda Legal, [ (last vised July 27, 2017) (eight stat); “No Promo Homo” and “Don’t Say Gay” Laws, Trevor Project, [ (last vised July 27, 2017) (eight stat); “No Promo Homo” Laws, Gay, Lbian & Straight Educ.
Part III addrs two qutns that are monly asked about the enforcement of anti-gay curriculum laws, light of the Supreme Court’s validatn of anti-gay sodomy and marriage laws: (1) whether state and feral agenci still have the legal thory to enforce anti-gay curriculum laws, and (2) whether officials still have the polil will to do so.
In particular, this Part reviews and rejects four terts that state legislatur have historilly voked to jtify anti-gay curriculum laws: (1) promotg moral disapproval of homosexual nduct, (2) promotg children’s heterosexual velopment, (3) preventg sexually transmted fectns, and (4) regnizg that stat have broad thory to prcribe the curriculum of public schools. The phrase “no promo homo” was origally ed by Nan Hunter to scribe the Briggs Iniative, a 1978 California ballot proposal allowg the termatn of any public school teacher who engaged the “advotg, solicg, imposg, enuragg, or promotg of private or public homosexual activy.
NAMIBIAN PARLIAMENT APPROV ANTI-GAY LAW SPE URT LG
Later, William Eskridge ed the phrase “no promo homo” to scribe siar laws that emerged durg this perd that prohibed the “promotn” of “homosexualy” var settgs: feral taxatn and spendg, state universy fundg, FBI hate crime reportg, and public school curricula. A send typology distguish between anti-gay curriculum laws based on whether the discrimatory language is “direct” (discrimatg agast lbian, gay, and bisexual people by g terms like “homosexualy” or “homosexual”) or “direct” (g terms that are not herently discrimatory—e.
Like Bryant, Briggs fend his iative as an attempt to protect children om gay teachers: “What I am after is to remove those homosexual teachers who through word, thought or ed want to be a public homosexual, to entice young imprsnable children to their liftyle. Although the judge acknowledged that “[t]he Oklahoma Legislature chose to e the language ‘unf to teach’ rather than the language ‘materially or substantially dispt, ’” he found that the distctn was meangls: “It is apparent to this urt that a teacher found unf bee of public homosexual activy or nduct would e a substantial and material disptn of the school. A teacher who went before the Oklahoma legislature or appeared on televisn to urge the repeal of the Oklahoma anti-sodomy statute would be “advotg, ” “promotg, ” and “enuragg” homosexual sodomy and creatg a substantial risk that his or her speech would e to the attentn of school children or school employe....
A week later, the Oklahoma Hoe of Reprentativ adopted a rolutn urgg the Oklahoma Attorney General to “assume ntrol” of the lol school board’s appeal on the ground that “homosexualy is ungodly, unnatural and unclean” and an “unf example for the children the State of Oklahoma to follow. In the Surgeon General’s view, the spread of HIV had settled the untry’s bat about sex tn and the discsn of homosexualy public schools: “There is now no doubt that we need sex tn schools and that clu rmatn on heterosexual and homosexual relatnships.
WILL KENYA BE THE LATT TO PASS ANTI-GAY LAW?
In rponse to the objectns, newspaper verage emphasized that “the disease is spreadg among heterosexuals” and that “[t]he re curriculum beg proposed for Oklahoma schoolchildren strs the avoidance of homosexual or promiscuo sexual activy, as well as the shared e of needl for traveno dg e. 13, 1992, at B2 (on file wh the Columbia Law Review) (scribg the re elements of the Hoe bill, cludg that “homosexualy is not an acceptable liftyle and that homosexual nduct is a crimal offense”); Phillip Rawls, Bill Would Make Schools Teach Sexual Abstence, Huntsville Tim (Ala. Irve, One Generatn Post-Stonewall: Polil Contts over Lbian and Gay School Reform, A Queer World 572, 573 (Mart Duberman ed., 1997) [hereafter Irve, One Generatn Post-Stonewall] (notg that Project 10, the first high school program for gay stunts, lnched 1985); Moran, supra note 158, at 186–87 (notg that 1970, “a gay rights group...
Cled to support sex tn the schools, jtifiably fearg that sex tn would bee a vehicle for antihomosexual rmatn”); Who We Are: Improvg Edutn, Creatg a Better World, GLSEN, [ (last vised July 27, 2017) (notg that the Gay, Lbian, and Straight Edutn Network (GLSEN) was tablished 1990). Virgia Uribe & Karen Harbeck, Addrsg the Needs of Lbian, Gay, and Bisexual Youth: The Origs of Project 10 and School-Based Interventn, Comg Out of the Classroom Closet: Gay and Lbian Stunts, Teachers, and Curricula 9, 10–11 (Karen Harbeck ed., 1992).
Named after Aled Ksey’s timate that ten percent of the populatn is “exclively homosexual, ” the program was nceived as “an -school unselg program providg emotnal support, rmatn, rourc, and referrals to young people who intified themselv as lbian, gay or bisexual” and an attempt “to heighten the school muny’s acceptance of and sensivy to gay, lbian, and bisexual issu. Although the passag appeared only three of the curriculum’s 443 pag, one district’s school board print lled them “dangeroly misleadg lbian/homosexual propaganda” and acced the New York Cy Chancellor of perpetratg “as big a lie as any ncted by Hler or Stal.
CALIFORNIA STILL HAS AN ANTI-GAY MARRIAGE LAW ON THE BOOKS. VOTERS ULD REMOVE NEXT YEAR
This anomaly often prompts two skeptil but stctive qutns about the enforcement of anti-gay curriculum laws: (1) whether officials still have the legal thory to enforce the laws, even though they often refer to sodomy and marriage laws that have already been clared unnstutnal; and (2) whether officials still have the polil will to enforce the laws, even after the legalizatn of same-sex timacy and same-sex marriag. By surveyg the available evince om state and feral regulatns and guil, and om lol media verage and urt filgs, this Part shows that at least some jurisdictns may still be enforcg the laws, spe of the Supreme Court’s validatn of anti-gay sodomy and marriage laws.
LGBT RIGHTS AI: WILL KENYA BE THE LATT TO PASS ANTI-GAY LAW?
— To beg this analysis, this sectn surveys the available evince om the twenty stat that currently have anti-gay curriculum laws to terme whether: (1) the state’s tn regulatns clu anti-gay language; (2) the state’s curriculum guil clu anti-gay language; and (3) the state’s curriculum guil exclu or mean LGBT inti by failg to clu any nonrogatory referenc to sexual orientatn, genr inty, or same-sex relatnships.
HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: ANTI-GAY LAWS PROMOTE VLENCE, DISCRIMATN ST. VCENT
Tim (June 16, 2015), (on file wh the Columbia Law Review) (scribg a North Carola elementary school teacher’s rignatn); Mark Schultz, 200 Fill Orange County School Meetg on Gay Fable, News & Observer (May 15, 2015), [ (notg that new, more rtrictive polici were stuted after a teacher read the book to his class). See Charl Bassett, Teacher Backs Gay Polici, Fired by School Board, News 9 (May 12, 2009), [ (scribg a teacher who was “fired for phg anti-discrimatn polici for homosexual stunts”); Megan Rolland, Former Oklahoma Cy Teacher Joe Quigley Says Send Termatn Was Unfair, Oklahoman (Jan.
It is difficult to image more pellg evince of a state’s enforcement of an anti-gay curriculum law: a public school’s health textbook which verbal and visual pictns of lbian, gay, and bisexual people and orientatns have been lerally marked for letn by school district officials.
By rtrictg classroom stctn about “homosexualy, ” the laws stct lbian, gay, and bisexual stunts, and stunts raised by same-sex upl, that “homosexualy” is too shameful, immoral, or unlawful to be discsed on the same terms that heterosexualy is discsed. In any event, the Court’s analysis of the laws challenged Romer and Wdsor appli equally well to anti-gay curriculum laws: History offers few, if any, exampl of laws that have prohibed or rtricted stctn about a class of persons the curriculum of public schools. In light of the lgs, one n jt as easily image the Court analyzg anti-gay curriculum laws unr a third amework: Rather than specifyg a level of scty, the Court n strike down the laws by applyg the prcipl articulated Romer, Lawrence, Wdsor, and Obergefell.