um, wait. is it legal for a public school to have an "abstinence only policy"? do you get kicked out if you have sex at home with someone and you go to the school? last time i checked, that was completely and totally illegal, i dont care what orientation you are.

The school has an abstinence only policy, and that's probably a good thing. It would be awkward if the school went and had dirty dirty sex with another school. It might have baby schools, or get school STDs...

Not only is it probably illegal, it's meaningless. What are they going to do, follow each kid around? Catch them in the act? And who is going to define sex in this case?

More importantly, I hate the underlying assumption that being gay means having gay sex. It's a sexual orientation, just like being straight. You don't forfeit the right to having a sexual orientation just because you're not getting any (or, perhaps, have never gotten any, which may well be the case for some of these students).

Didn't catholic schools and their clerical staff already establish that intolerance, abstinence-only-education, and man-on-boy sodomy can all co-exist peacefully on the same campus? It's probably because the student pushing for the club is a lesbian. Or maybe homosexuality is only okay in the classroom when it's being forced on a helpless choir boy.

I remember the Gay Straight Club from high school. I also remember the little conversation in the sex ed class that a principle cannot deny that club's creation IF the students want to create it and could find a teacher to "mentor" it. (which was our flamboyant Spanish teacher). But, that's in my state, I thinks laws like that vary from state to state, don't they?
Abstinence programs don't have anything to do with that. These people are clearly homophobes and need to catch up with the times(and toss out the abstinence program because that's been shown to be ridiculous). They're here and they're Queer, and they need support groups and committees too. IF they would quit stepping on people's toes and just acknowledge that we all deserve to be equal, we wouldn't have Women's Rights movements or Gay Rights movements, because we would already have our rights.

Most sexual abstinence definitions (depending on the organization, and there are many) don't include masturbation in the list of sins. They also don't specifically promote it as an alternative to sex, but that's a different flavor of stupidity for you.

Many people, gay and straight, masturbate and fantasize before becoming sexually active. Who you fantisize about and feel attracted to are shaped by your sexual orientation, so just having man-man or woman-woman sex isn't the measuring stick for one's orientation.

A GSA could fall well within the limits of a (bogus and illegal) abstinence policy anyway.

From ACLU press release:

School officials denied official recognition to the GSA even though many other extracurricular clubs – including the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, the Key Club, and the Rodeo team – are officially recognized and meet regularly on school grounds.

That club wouldn't happen to include instruction in Cowgirl, Reverse Cowgirl, or Git Along Lil' Dogie Style, would it?

it wasnt a catholic school bourbs. catholic schools, while i disagree with it, could ban that group bc its against the values promoted by catholicism and they arent funded by FEDERAL tax dollars. furthermore, a catholic school would most likely assume everyone practice abstinence and not make the distinction btw straight and gay, seeing as how gay priests are ok since theoretically, they abstain from homosexual sex. it is the actual activity catholics have an issue with, not the orientation.

this is all technically, i am sure many catholics hold more extreme positions and more liberal ones-my parents being very liberal women should be priests and gays should get married catholics.

while i dont agree with most parts of catholicism and often make fun of it, what you just said, if it was said toward another religion like judaism, would be considered pretty intolerant and ignorant.

It's a sexual orientation, just like being straight. You don't forfeit the right to having a sexual orientation just because you're not getting any (or, perhaps, have never gotten any, which may well be the case for some of these students). - DT

Well ... from a "traditional" point of view, neither being "straight" nor being "gay" is an orientation but rather is based on what you do. While the fundies may claim they want to return to a 1950s that only existed on certain TeeVee shows (and only if you ignored certain obvious subtexts of those shows), at some level they must realize that the very acknowledgment of sexual orientation, independent of having sex rather undermines traditional marriage.

I.e. in traditional marriage, it didn't matter whether you were gay or straight 'cause you married for reasons other than romantic love. But as soon as romantic love enters into the equation (c.f. Plato's Symposium, which is oft misunderstood: Plato was not at all backing only Platonic love, eh?) and marriage between a man and a woman has something to do with their having a heterosexual orientation, why not allow gay marriage?

So yes ... these people would, at some level, claim that kids, who are supposed to, in their minds, be abstinate, are neither straight nor gay ... at the very least they (in a fit of projection considering the way fundies, e.g., recruit kids into their belief system) view homosexuality as something into which one has to be recruited: which must mean (after all, nature is infinitely diverse so if there are people born straight, there must be people born gay ...) that the same is true for heterosexuality, nu? I.e. these people really don't believe in the very concept of "sexual orientation".

^Hence this incident is dumb.

DAS, the problem is that your thought process is WAAAAY too logical :)

Generally, fundies and their ilk tend to think of EVERYONE as straight, even before they have sex -- hence, boys may be interested in girls (though of course they implicitly don't acknowledge reciprocal or -- heavens! -- initial interest from the girls) and pursue them, and it's expected that this will happen before sex.

No one is born gay because gay is a disorder. Some "compassionate" fundies admit it's not a choice per se, but nonetheless they must deny these urges. You're not really considered to be "gay," of course, until you act out on those urges. Someone with those urges who doesn't act on them is not gay, but merely confused.

As for lesbians, I thought they were all abstaining? I mean, everyone knows you can't have "real" sex without a penis!

[/sarcasm]

Things like this stem from the bogus anti-gay attitude that all gay couples go at it like rabbits and spread disease......I'm sure we'll see this sentiment expressed again as the Gay marriage battle heats up in Massachusetts

1. i HATE the term sexual orientation. as lesbian, it feels the same way wife and husband compare to partner.
2. i need to re-read 'the way we never were'

Abstinence-only education discriminates against anyone without a frame of mind predating the 19th century. It also insults everyone's intelligence. It should be stopped.

I wonder what these jackasses would say about a couple I know from school. Kevin and Kyle got hitched last year in a religious marriage ceremony at their church (which they attend EVERY Sunday morning, Wednesday night, and special occasions galore) and both were virgins at the time they got married.

A gay couple that waited until after their church wedding to have sex. How confusing would that be for the anti-gay and pro-abstinence crowd?

I also remember the little conversation in the sex ed class that a principle cannot deny that club's creation IF the students want to create it and could find a teacher to "mentor" it. (which was our flamboyant Spanish teacher). But, that's in my state, I thinks laws like that vary from state to state, don't they?

Not that law. It's the Federal Equal Access Act, originally intended to circumvent Establishment Clause difficulties with setting up Christian clubs at public schools.