Gamer ^
Dispute over gay club in Utah school
leads to ban on nonacademic groups
SALT LAKE CITY — The Chess Club —
gone. The Ski Club — no more. The same with
Students Against Drunk Driving and Bible
clubs.
Rather than let gay high school students form
an organization, the city Board of Education
voted to ban all nonacademic clubs.
“Everyone suffers because of the gays,” com
plained Brett Shields, a 16-year-old at East High
School and a member of the Beef Club, "a social
club that met last week to eat steaks and burgers
and attend a “monster truck” rally.
The 4-3 vote by the Salt Lake City School
Board late Tuesday was the latest in a bitter
statewide debate over a move by students to
form a gay-straight student alliance at East High.
School board members said federal law and
a U.S. Supreme Court ruling gave them only
two options: allow all extracurricular clubs or
eliminate them all.
The issue has reverberated from the class
room to the Capitol as Utah’s conservative Re
publican-dominated Legislature scrambles for
a way to ban gay clubs without closing down
such student enterprises as the Beef Club and
without being accused of discriminating against
homosexuals.
Roughly 85 percent of the 104 members of
the Legislature arc Mormon, as are more than
70 percent of their constituents. The church con
demns homosexual acts and any sexual relation
ship outside marriage.
Some 30 service, ethnic or sports clubs at
East will be affected by the board’s action be
ginning with the 1996-97 school year. The ban
will also apply to the district’s two other high
schools.
Board president Mary Jo Rasmussen, who
opposed the ban, said it remained unclear
whether the high schools’ varsity teams would
be eliminated, too.
Some students on Wednesday blamed the
clubs’ demise on about two dozen homosexual
or bisexual students who had pressed for a gay
club.
“Some people are glad they got rid of it, but
disappointed they also got rid of everything,”
Shields said.
Supporters of the gay club criticized the
board’s solution.
“I think they’re punishing all of the Salt Lake
City School District because they’re afraid of
one club,” said Holly Peterson, a West High stu
dent and sister of Kelli Peterson, founder of the
Gay-Straight Alliance at East.
At the 2 1/2-hour public hearing, backers of
“Everyone suffers because of
the gays. ”
BRETT SHIELDS
16-year-old student
- $
the gay club contended kids struggling with
sexual identity problems need one another’s
support in a homophobic environment. Oppo
nents contended that allowing the club would
be giving tacit approval to immoral conduct.
The meeting was punctuated by shouting
matches, with some opponents equating homo
sexuals with transvestites, alcoholics and per
verts. Supporters of the gay alliance carried
signs saying “Down with homophobic clergy.”
Doug Bates, attorney for the state Office of
Education, said the new policy would cancel
any club not directly tied to a classroom. Dur
ing the hearing, Bates sought to assure oppo
nents of the gay club that no student could “use
the schools as a place to organize orgies.”
South Africans
react to mixing
races in school
POTGIETERSRUS, South Africa —
Seven-year-old Karabo Kekana shook his
head “no” when asked if he wanted to be
one of the first black children to join 700
whites at Potgietersrus primary school.
His mother had other ideas.
She woke him up from his afternoon
nap Wednesday to register him after a
judge upheld last week’s landmark rul
ing that the school’s whites-only policy
— a holdover from apartheid — was un
constitutional.
“I want my child to get a quality edu
cation, just like whites,” said Meiki
Kekana.
She and other parents defied the cold
stares of whites who gathered to watch
them register 16 children, who will begin
classes Thursday.
“I’m not afraid,” Meiki Kekana said.
Not that she doesn’t know what is in
store for the children on the first day of
classes. Police plan to guard the students
— much as U.S. officers did during the
American civil rights movement — and
dozens of journalists are in place to record
the students’ arrival.
The school drew international atten
tion last month, when a black family in
sisted on sending its children to the school
and the school replied that blacks were
not welcome. It was the most blatant chal
lenge yet to post-apartheid equal rights
laws promulgated two years ago.
White parents oppose mixing races and
fear allowing blacks will erode the cul
ture of Afrikaners, the Dutch-descended
white settlers of South Africa.
Government officials joined black par
ents in a court challenge to the admissions
policy and won a judicial order last week
for the black children to be enrolled. An
appeal by school officials was rejected
Wednesday.
The governing body of the school said
in a statement it would try to take the case
to the Constitutional Court, the nation’s
highest, and that it believed its whites
only admission policy should remain in
tact until the case was finally settled. T*
But a delegation of provincial govern
ment officials, black parents and journal
ists pulled up anyway Wednesday,
guarded by about 20 policemen at the
front gate.
Only Karabo and one other child, 8
year-old Moshabi Ledwaba, joined the
adults filling out registration forms at a
table in the school.
Supreme Court reviews law
restricting indecency on TV
WASHINGTON — A law that restricts in
decent programs on certain cable channels turns
the government into a TV censor, opponents told
the Supreme Court Wednesday. But the govern
ment and other defenders said it simply restores
cable companies’ ability to choose what shows
to carry.
At issue are provisions that have never gone
into effect but would restrict indecent shows
appearing on channels that cable operators are
required by law to lease to local groups, as well
as those set aside for public use.
A decision is expected by June.
During an hour-long argument session, Jus
tices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sandra Day
O’Connor seemed sympathetic to the argument
that giving cable companies the discretion to
choose what shows to ban is a form of govern
ment censorship.
“Government is steering the choice” as to
what programs are available, Ginsburg sug
gested. “The government isn’t a neutral arbi
ter”
“The government’s thumb has been put on
the scale to eliminate a certain type of protected
speech,” O’Connpr said.
A majority of the justices appeared hostile
to the notion that the law merely facilitates pri
vate action by cable companies — and should
not be subject to constitutional challenge.
Only the government or people acting for
the government can violate someone’s consti
tutional rights. Acts by private citizens may be
illegal but never unconstitutional.
Justice Anthony Kennedy at one point ad
vised Justice Department lawyer Lawrence
Wallace to drop his private-action argument and
instead focus on the validity of the law’s chal
lenged provisions.
Justices Ginsburg, O’Connor, John Paul
Stevens, David Souter and Steven Breyer also
appeared to reject the government’s private-ac
tion argument.
Contained in the 1992 Cable Act, the chal
lenged provisions do not apply to commercial
“The government’s thumb has
been put on the scale to
eliminate a certain type of
protected speech. ”
SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR
Supreme Court justice
cable channels such as MTV, USA and HBO.
The provisions permit local cable companies
to either ban indecent shows appearing on ac
cess channels or place all indecent programs on
a single, blocked channel. Customers who want
to watch the programs have to ask the cable
company, in writing, to unblock the channel.
The law defines indecent programs as those
that depict or describe “sexual or excretory ac
tivities or organs in a patently offensive man
ner.
Those challenging the law say programs on
AIDS, abortion and childbirth could be banned
or blocked as indecent, though indecent speech
is legal.
Local cable companies lost the ability to de
cide what shows could appear on leased access
channels in 1984. But in 1992, responding to
criticism about lewd programs on some leased
access channels, Congress decided to let cable
systems decide what shows to carry on those
channels. Cable companies have such discre
tion on all other channels.
I. Michael Greenberger, representing those
who challenged the law, argued that Congress
should have used a less-restrictive means to
regulate indecency, such as restricting the times
of day when indecent programs may be shown.
The cases are Denver Area Educational Tele
communications Consortium vs. FCC, 95-124,
and Alliance for Community Media vs. FCC,
95-227.
Legislature Notes
• The Judiciary Committee ad
vanced a bill Wednesday that
would prohibit Nebraska doctors
from performing abortions when
there is an “existing sign of life.”
Those signs. Sen. John Lind
say of Omaha said, are the pres
ence of circulatory and respira
tory functions or the presence of
cerebral functions.
LB 13 80 was the source of
much debate in a public hearing
earlier this month because the
bill was deemed unconstitu
tional—directly challenging the
1973 U.S. Supreme Court deci
sion in Roe vs. Wade.
Opponents of the bill asked
why the state should be allowed
to make decisions that they feel
should be reserved for the
mother.
The bill will be placed on the
general file and will be up for
floor debate later this session.
• Much to the delight of Gov.
Ben Nelson, a bill that would es
tablish incarceration work
camps for non-violent first-time
offenders was advanced to the
general file of the Nebraska Leg
islature on Wednesday.
Nelson said he believed the
camps would greatly benefit
first-time offenders while help
ing to ease the current prison
overcrowding in the state peni
tentiary.
— Ted Taylor
Train hauling
acid derails
in deep snow
RED CLIFF,? Colo. — A freight train
derailed near a snowy pass high in the
Rockies on Wednesday, killing two crew
members and spilling thousands of gal
lons of sulfuric acid down a mountainside
and across a highway.
Rescuers trudged through waist-deep
snow to reach the wreckage of the South
ern Pacific Railroad train near 10,400-foot
Tennessee Pass, south of this village and
10 miles north of the historic mining town
of Lcadville.
“At this time we do not know what
caused the derailment,” said sheriff’s
spokeswoman Kim Andre, “but we are
surmising snow may have played a ma
jor part in it.”
Nearly 1 ML teet ot snow naa taiien
Tuesday night and more snow fell
Wednesday, Andre said.
The National Weather Service said sev
eral avalanches were reported in the area.
But sheriff’s spokesman Jeff Beavers said
there was no obvious sign of an avalanche
near the tracks.
It was the fifth major train accident in
the United States this month. Authorities
have found no common link.
The 82-car train was bound from East
St. Louis, 111., to Roseville, Calif., when
it jumped the tracks before dawn. Both
engines and 25 freight cars derailed, said
Mike Furtney, a Southern Pacific Railroad
spokesman.
The engineer and a student engineer
were killed. Their names were not imme
diately released.
Authorities were notified after the con
ductor, Steven Hudson, walked out to the
road shortly before 6 a.m. Hudson, 45, of
Pueblo, was hospitalized in fair condition
with a broken collarbone. Twenty others
who were not on the train but affected by
the fumes were treated at a hospital and
released.
Two of six tank cars containing sulfu
ric acid broke open, spilling some of the
27,000 gallons they contained, Furtney
said.
It wasn t immediately known how
much acid had spilled over U.S. Highway
24, a main route between Leadville and
Vail. Authorities at first feared the acid
would flow into the Eagle River and its
tributaries but discovered the liquid had
pooled in low spots and was contained.
The acid is highly corrosive if it comes
in contact with the skin or clothing, and
its fumes can be harmful to breathe. Haz
ardous-materials teams were sent to dump
an alkaline material to neutralize the acid.
About 40 cars drove through the acid
before the highway was closed, Eagle
County administrator Jack Ingstad said.
Car owners were warned that the acid
could cause dangerous fumes in a closed
garage and could corrode brakes.
On Feb. 1, two crew members were
killed in a freight train derailment in
Southern California; two crew members
and a passenger died in a commuter-train $
collision in New Jersey on Feb. 9; nine
people were injured last week by a run
away freight train in St. Paul, Minn.; and
11 were killed last week when a com
muter train and an Amtrak train collided
in Silver Spring, Md.
NetJraskan
Editor J. Christopher Hain,
472-1766
http://www.unl.edu/DailyNeb/
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