Texas judge rules against gay student club

A judge has ruled that a group of gay high school students cannot meet on campus, saying parents and school officials should determine what subject matter is allowed at school. The Lubbock Gay-Straight Alliance claimed in a July lawsuit that the school district violated students' constitutional rights and federal law by refusing the group's requests to meet at Lubbock High School in 2002. Judge Sam R. Cummings said his ruling is "an assertion of a school's right not to surrender control of the public school system to students and erode a community's standard of what subject matter is considered obscene and inappropriate." He said the district's policy banning discussion of sex or sex acts differentiated it from six similar cases in Utah, California, Indiana, and Kentucky that sided with similar groups. Brian Chase, an attorney with Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, a national gay rights organization that filed the lawsuit on behalf of the group, disagreed and said no decision has been made on an appeal. "I'm disappointed that the court didn't choose to follow the six other federal decisions allowing the students to meet and discuss issues of importance to gay and lesbian citizens," he said. Lubbock school board president Mark Griffin said the decision "accurately reflects the community perspective as a whole."