Four Grossmont Unified High School District governing board members have joined a federal lawsuit challenging an anti-discrimination bill signed into law by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Attorneys for the Alliance Defense Fund and Advocates for Faith and Freedom filed suit in federal court in San Diego on Nov. 27, attempting to overturn Senate Bill 777. The bill, which becomes effective Jan. 11, adds the terms “gender” and “sexual orientation” to the California Education Code, and expands the existing term “sex” to include “gender identity,” which means a person’s self-identified gender.

The lawsuit, filed on behalf of the California Education Committee, a project of California Family Council, claims SB 777 is unconstitutionally vague and violates the privacy of all students, teachers and other persons present on school campuses.

It names Gov. Schwarzenegger, state Attorney General Edmund Brown Jr., Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell and others as defendants. On Dec. 21, Equality California and the Gay-Straight Alliance Network filed a motion to intervene in the lawsuit, so SB 777 would be enforced in schools.

“Adding [gender identity and sexual orientation] as a special sub group for discrimination protection to a law that already protects everyone is unnecessary, and an insidious motive to destroy marriage between a man and a woman and to destroy marriage as God ordained it,” said GUHSD governing board president, Priscilla Schreiber, who is listed among the plaintiffs in the lawsuit. Schreiber, along with GUHSD board members Larry Urdahl, Robert Shield and Jim Kelly, supports overturning SB 777.

“To protect sexual orientation as a special status, allowing people to be protected because they say they were ‘born that way’ is an attempt to put alternative lifestyles on a moral plane,” Schreiber said. “I believe homosexuality is a choice. It’s a form of indoctrination when you bring that into the schools.”

The existing California Education Code bans all forms of discrimination, but did not specifically protect students from discrimination on the bases of gender or sexual orientation.

In an editorial penned for The North County Times, Sheila Kuehl, D-Santa Monica, who authored SB 777, said the bill simply makes clear the protections students are afforded.

“Although the opposition makes a valiant attempt to create confusion about the scope of current law, discrimination based upon a student’s actual or perceived disability, gender, nationality, race or ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation or association with a person who has any of these characteristics has been prohibited in all publicly funded school programs and activities (including textbooks and classroom instruction) since 2000,” Kuehl wrote. “SB 777 simply lists the current prohibited bases of discrimination and the current definitions for those terms in one place for easy reference by parents and school administrators.”

The lawsuit argues that the redefinition of gender should be declared unconstitutional and void because it is vague. The suit also claims school administrators wouldn’t know whether they are violating the law when they segregate boys and girls for classroom exercises, or when high schools choose a homecoming king or queen.

“What will prevent the 250-pound linebacker from deciding he wants to share the locker room with the cheerleaders?” said Robert Tyler, general counsel for Advocates for Faith and Freedom. “If implemented, this bill will have disastrous effects in our school system. This social experiment defies common sense. Kids are going to be taught that they have the right to completely ignore their physical anatomy and choose the status of being ‘male’ or ‘female.’ This is such a free-flowing idea that every morning you might wake up and choose a gender.”

Geoff Kors, executive director of Equality California, which sponsored the bill, said in an earlier interview that Equality California would work to preserve the law.

“It is ironic that organizations that claim to support families are working to overturn a law that will protect students and help keep them in school,” he said in a Dec. 6 story in the Gay & Lesbian Times.

Opponents argue that the bill is a tool to destroy the traditional family.

“Parents sending their children to public schools are trusting that school officials will protect their children’s safety,” said Ron Prentice, Chief Executive Officer of California Family Council. “It defies logic that schools will be required by law to ignore one’s anatomy. The goal of SB 777 is not to create a gender neutral environment, but to disregard the traditional family, and its beliefs, and respect for a mom and dad raising the kids.”