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DEL.ICIO.USParents Wanna Know
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Should students have to get their parents’ permission to join a school club? Superintendent of Schools Kathy Cox has proposed a rule requiring club sponsors to make sure members have the OK from their parents to join. Though the proposal doesn’t mention clubs for gay students, nobody’s talking about the importance of Mom and Dad knowing their kid is in the Spanish club. Here’s Mary MacDonald’s story.
Should this become a state policy?
Comments
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By stacy howard
March 22, 2005 09:18 AM | Link to this
As an educator and faculty sponsor of a GSA group I have a few comments. First I am appalled that the “leader” of education in Georgia would propose to make students get permission from parents to attend meetings of a school club. It is not hard to see that this is a thinly veiled attempt to restrict membership in gay-straight student alliances. Does Ms. Cox not understand that many gay students would be subject to verbal assault, emotional assault, or physical assault if they told their parents that they were gay? These types of clubs are for fellowship and mutual support. Gay students are often harassed at school. Sometimes they are even recipients of negative comments from faculty and administrators. They need and deserve a safe place to discuss their lives in a manner conducive to positive self-esteem and self-image. Perhaps Ms. Cox and those who think narrowly like her think that by suppressing the rights of these students to assemble (free from hatred and intolerance-even from their parents) that they will just disappear into the woodwork and emerge as obedient and more palatable heterosexuals. Unfortunately it does not work this way. These kids and their supporters should maintain their rights to be who they are without the interference or oppression of the Georgia Board of Education, parents, or anyone else for that matter.
By Dana
March 22, 2005 02:23 PM | Link to this
They better ask my permission for EVERY club including Fellowship of Christian Athletes if they ask me permission for one
By David
March 25, 2005 03:23 PM | Link to this
i will not worry about what club my daughter joins in school until she comes home and says she is a member of the local high school satanist club….then i will worry….