A high school
student won't be allowed to proceed with a lawsuit against
his school district for instituting a policy that barred him
from expressing his opposition to homosexuality, a
federal appeals court ruled Wednesday.
The U.S. 6th
circuit court of appeals, in a 2-1 vote, said Boyd
County High School student Timothy Morrison failed to
show that he was harmed by the policy that was later
changed.
Judge Deborah L.
Cook, joined by Judge John R. Adams, also said Morrison
didn't show how winning a lawsuit seeking only $1 in damages
would rectify his situation. Judge Karen Nelson Moore
dissented.
''This case
should be over,'' Cook wrote. ''Allowing it to proceed to
determine the constitutionality of an abandoned policy -- in
the hope of awarding the plaintiff a single dollar --
vindicates no interest and trivializes the important
business of the federal courts.''
The ruling is a
reversal of a previous ruling that held Morrison should
be allowed to pursue the lawsuit.
Morrison, a
senior at Boyd County High School, sued the Boyd County
school district over a policy that required students to
undergo antiharassment training. He claimed the policy
threatened him with punishment for expressing
religious beliefs in opposition to homosexuality.
Morrison is a professed Christian who believes his
religion requires him to speak out against what he sees as
behavior that doesn't comport with his understanding
of Christian morality.
Morrison was
never punished under the policy, which was later changed to
exempt speech that would normally be protected off campus.
The school
district adopted the policy and established the
antiharassment training as part of a 2004 legal
settlement that ended a lawsuit between the school
district and a now-defunct gay-rights group that wanted
recognition as an extracurricular group.
Members of the
Boyd County High School Gay-Straight Alliance argued that
the school district violated their constitutional rights by
refusing to allow them to meet on campus.
Joel Oster, an
attorney for the Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian law
group that represents Morrison, didn't immediately return a
telephone message left at his Scottsdale, Ariz.,
office. Winter Huff, an attorney representing the
school district, didn't immediately return a call to her
Somerset office.
Sharon McGowan,
an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, which
supported the Alliance Defense Fund in arguing that Morrison
should be permitted to pursue his case, said the ACLU
was disappointed by the decision. (AP)