There’s a new kid on the block filing baseless lawsuits that generate lots of publicity but achieve nothing. It’s well known that the Alliance Defense Fund is a national group that has taken up the defense of bigotry that’s masquerading as “religious” freedom in the workplace. But there’s a new group – “Advocates for Faith and Freedom” – a nonprofit based in Murrieta that is dedicated to “protecting religious liberty.”

Jennifer Monk is the lawyer representing Advocates in two lawsuits filed in late 2007.

In one suit, Monk argues that California’s laws protecting kids from discrimination based upon sexual orientation and gender identity in our schools violate freedom of religion as well as the rights of parents to raise their children. Advocates is circulating an initiative to put repeal of the measure on the California ballot.

Sponsors of the ballot measure show complete ignorance and callousness toward teens suffering from gender dysphoria, who desperately need to transition and present as a different gender. The right wing trivializes their pain by ridiculing them, telling the public the issue’s about “the school linebacker wanting to change in the girls’ locker room.”

Ironically, however, the lawsuit and the initiative is all for naught, because even the Bush administration’s position is that federal law protects students from discrimination on the basis of gender identity and sexual orientation.

Further, a federal appellate court recently ruled that schools must have policies prohibiting discrimination based upon gender and, by extension, sexual orientation and gender identity. And they must train personnel. Otherwise, the Department of Education can stop them from receiving federal funds, and abused students can sue for damages. In short, failure to have policies and training amounts to “deliberate indifference.”

Nevertheless, Monk and Advocates continue to file suits. The second suit Monk has filed involves Chad Farnan, a student at Capistrano Valley High Schools. Farnan claims (in a suit filed on his behalf) that history teacher James Corbett discriminated against him based upon religion by creating a “hostile” learning environment.

The suit alleges that Corbett told students in class how he felt about the Boy Scouts’ anti-gay policies, the failure of abstinence-only education programs and Sweden’s experience of an inverse relationship between churchgoing and crime.

However, each of these matters is public knowledge. In fact, the U.S. Supreme Court condemned the Scouts’ anti-gay policies, comparing them to those of the Ku Klux Klan. As for the Bush administration’s close to $1 billion spent on abstinence education programs, studies show that a handful have delayed sex for a few months, but that when teens do inevitably have sex they are more likely to get pregnant (teenage birth rates are up for the first time in 10 years) and/or to get an STD.

Even if this weren’t widely known, discussion about it would hardly be taboo in social studies classes, where such is simply consistent with the curriculum.

To put this in perspective, how otherwise would students learn that, relatively recently, this country’s Constitution permitted the enslavement of black people, and that our Supreme Court (in Dred Scott) upheld such? How else would students learn that women were once not allowed to vote or to practice law (Bradwell v. Illinois)? How would they learn that this society once viewed “homosexuality [as] a sin, punishable by death or imprisonment” (Bowers v. Hardwick, which was overruled by Lawrence v. Texas)?

Does discussing such historical facts create a hostile environment?

All of these practices and beliefs were based, in large measure, upon “religious faith.” And those who spoke out against such laws were considered opponents of the Bible’s laws and ways.

Fortunately, the reality is that “hostile” school environment cases need be extremely egregious to be actionable. They need to involve a teacher or professor who deliberately and consistently insults particular students because of their race, religion, gender, sexual orientation or disability.

So why are Monk and Advocates filing lawsuits that are most likely going to be dismissed? Because such lawsuits have become fund-raising and publicity tools. They generate lots of media attention, which translates into clippings posted throughout the Internet, which translates into funds that groups such as Advocates use to pay their attorneys.