A federal judge ruled that a high school Gay-Straight Alliance in Ann Arbor, Michigan, must allow a conservative Christian student to present her anti-gay views at a voluntary school program. The judge’s ruling is contrary to the law and a higher appellate court should reverse it.

The case of Hansen v. Ann Arbor Public Schools has garnered lots of media attention, mostly from conservatives who hail it as a victory against the gay agenda. It’s really a defeat for the First Amendment rights of all students, gay and Christian.

Student leaders at Pioneer High School conduct “Diversity Week” every year. Traditionally, the week’s activities at the high school are typical of such activities at most of the nation’s high schools.

The week’s activities include a general assembly program, panel discussions on race, religion and sexual orientation, and an “open mic” session during lunch hour. There are a number of multi-cultural activities involving music and food.

The panel talks occur during class time and teachers can sign up to bring their classes to hear the discussions. But the talks are not mandatory. Students do not have to attend, even if their classes do. Instead, the students can go to the library.

The week’s events are organized by the high school’s student council, which gets approval from its faculty advisor and school principal.

For Diversity Week (March 2002), the student leaders solicited input from the student groups concerning activities.

The only student group to respond was the school’s Gay Straight Alliance, which agreed to run the panel on sexual orientation. The federal court noted that the school turned “over entirely the sponsorship and administration of this panel to the GSA and its co-sponsors” (two openly gay teachers).

The GSA decided to present a panel on “Religion and Homosexuality.” Rather than ask the Rev. Fred Phelps, or Jerry Falwell, or Pat Robertson, the GSA invited clergy who are supportive of gays.

The panel included two Episcopalian ministers, a Presbyterian minister, a Presbyterian deacon, a rabbi, and a pastor from the United Church of Christ. (The panel did not include voices from the Catholic or Islamic faiths.)

A student member of Pioneers for Christ insisted on being able to present her views on homosexuality at the talk. She asked to have someone on the panel who would espouse contrary views.

School officials agreed to allow the student to make a two-minute speech prior to the panel talk. In the student’s proposed speech she likened “homosexuality” to religion in that both are “choices.” “Sexuality implies an action, and there are people who have been straight, then gay, then straight again.”

The school rejected this part of her speech. The GSA also objected on the grounds that this was its panel and presentation. It argued that it didn’t seem fair to require the GSA to present contrary views on homosexuality when the panel on race did not include a white supremacist. And the panel on religious diversity did not have to include a spokesperson from a fundamentalist Islamic sect that believes in death to America.

The school and the GSA acted in conformity with First Amendment law.

A number of years ago a group of gay Catholics wanted to march in a St. Patrick’s Day Parade. The organizers had no problem with gay Catholics marching, but they did not want them to display their flag or other messages supporting or condoning homosexuality.

The U.S. Supreme Court held that the parade organizers had a right to control the messages conveyed by marchers. It did not have to allow messages contrary to its mission.

And San Diegans will remember when local radio talk show host, Roger Hedgecock, tried to make Gay Pride include his contingent (“The Normal People”) in the Pride Parade. When Hedgecock sued to partake in the parade, the court ruled that Pride did not have to include marchers who espoused views inconsistent with the message of “gay pride and acceptance.”

Unfortunately, the federal judge in the Ann Arbor case, trying to avoid caving in to “politically correct” dogma, found that the student-run program was a forum open for contrary views.

He chided the high school and the GSA for not allowing diversity of views. And he found that the school didn’t have a reason for not allowing the hateful views of the student. But neither view is correct.

First, the same judge would not, on Martin Luther King Day, chide the Detroit public schools for not allowing the KKK to present its views on racism.

And, secondly, because schools have a duty to protect students from discrimination, the judge would concur with the school that it would cause harm to make African-American students sit idly by while a member of a hate group advocated their oppression and inequality.

Of course, this is the double standard that GLBT students and teachers have to live with in the schools.

Some courts believe that it’s still okay to make GLBT students and faculty sit and listen to people proclaiming homosexuality is a choice. Yet, we have yet to meet a heterosexual who says that heterosexuality is a choice.