LGBT
Students Rally for Safer Schools

About three dozen students rallied at the California state capitol in Sacramento Monday to call for new protections for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender students, in hopes of preventing further tragedies like the shooting death of gay Oxnard teen Lawrence King.

In addition to rallying, they met with legislators to urge the passage of a measure informally known as "Larry's Law," which would require teachers to make a report to their principal any time they observe a student being harassed. The students also met with representatives of the California School Boards Association and the state Department of Education to ask that school districts develop guidelines to assure the enforcement of existing laws prohibiting discrimination against LGBT students. "LGBT students at California schools are not safe," said Rick Griswold, a Fresno-area high school senior who appeared at the rally, according to the Ventura CountyStar.

"The law is on the books," Carolyn Laub, executive director of California's Gay-Straight Alliance Network, told the Star. "But there's a really big gap between the law and the reality."

It is particularly crucial, Laub said, to protect students whose gender expression does not match their biological gender. King, 15, a student at E.O. Green Junior High in Oxnard, was not only openly gay but sometimes wore makeup and high heels to school, and he was a frequent target of bullying. He had also professed to have a crush on fellow student Brandon McInerney, 14.

McInerney is now accused of fatally shooting King February 12 in a computer lab at their school. McInerney is charged with premeditated murder and with a hate crime, and is set to be tried as an adult.

Protections for LGBT students need to be strengthened, Laub told the Star, to make sure "that what happened to Larry King in Oxnard doesn't ever happen again in California schools."

Three gay members of the state legislature appeared at the rally, along with West Sacramento mayor Christopher Cabaldon, who recently came out as gay and is running for an assembly seat this year. According to the Star, he told the students, "I gave up 20 years of my life pretending to be something that I wasn't. I wish that as a young gay kid I would have had the courage each of you is showing." (The Advocate)