This past year’s Supreme Court agenda did not include any “specifically gay” issues. The case that was most important to us involved what the media dubbed the “Bong Hits for Jesus” case.

In short, it was a simple case regarding a high school student who unfurled a banner proclaiming “Bong Hits 4 Jesus” during an off-campus school event.

The student asserted that he was not advocating drug use. Rather, he was emulating a group of protesters that had displayed such a banner during a protest by the Rev. Fred Phelps.

A school official took offense to the term “bong hits” and instructed the student to take down the banner. The principal thought the message was advocating drug use, and she didn’t want that message associated with a school-sanctioned event. School officials later suspended the student for his conduct, effectively censoring all students’ freedom of speech.

This was a critical point in the ensuing case, which went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Of course, school officials argued that such censorship was justifiable in the situation. However, Lambda Legal Education Fund argued that ending free speech for students violates the First Amendment. (Ironically, Lambda was in accordance with the Alliance Defense Fund, the same group that funds and argues all the anti-gay litigation, on this point, as both groups defended free speech for gay and Christian students, respectively.) Violating the First Amendment, they said, would be far worse than us battling over whether students can wear T-shirts with messages like “Gay Pride,” “Christian Pride,” “Atheist Pride” or “Straight Pride.”

Lambda also argued that, if the court allowed school officials to censor student speech, it would end the existence of Gay-Straight Alliance groups (GSA), which now exist in 3,000 high schools. That’s because school officials would be allowed to curtail speech not in keeping with their “educational mission.”

In other words, if a school district adopted the view that the only acceptable way to have sex was while in a heterosexual marriage, for example, then any group advocating otherwise would be acting inconsistently with its educational message, and the group could be squelched.

That would end GSAs. It would also end the “Day of Silence” and students wearing “Gay Pride” T-shirts to school.

Only one member of the Supreme Court agreed with the school officials, although five of the nine justices of the court agreed that schools may censor speech that “promotes illegal drug use.” But the majority was made up of two justices, Samuel Alito and Anthony Kennedy.

Kennedy, who authored Lawrence v. Texas, which struck down sodomy laws enforced against gays, has been our greatest gay rights advocate. Alito, the newest member of the court, as an appellate judge, sided with a gay high school student when school officials refused to take reasonable measures to protect him from daily physical and verbal abuse. He rendered an opinion requiring the public school district to pay the student’s private school tuition because it was unable to protect him at public school – the most progressive view to date on gay bullying.

Kennedy and Alito’s egalitarian views were clear in the “bong hits” case, wherein neither supported ending free speech rights for students. In this view, they were joined by the four other moderate members of the court. Censoring student speech because it advocates an unpopular or minority view would be anathema to the First Amendment, they concurred.

That’s significant.

Further, the court said that student speech aimed at taunting, humiliating or harassing other students is not protected by the First Amendment. One lower court put it this way: “A ‘Straight Pride’ T-shirt is acceptable, but not ‘Gays Suck.’”

Other GLBT-related cases currently working their way up the appellate ladder include a case regarding whether a school district can deny a GSA’s on-campus status, and whether school officials can prevent students from wearing “Gay Pride” T-shirts to school. Look out for my coverage of these cases in future columns.