This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
No teacher in Utah should have to choose between their job and offering encouragement or potentially life-saving support to a gay student.
Unfortunately, state law incoherently prohibits the "advocacy of homosexuality" in public school curriculum. Another statute targets Gay Straight Alliances to discourage both their existence and the participation of the closeted teens. Together, these laws target LGBT teenagers and aim to deprive them of critical information and social support as they are coming out and navigating adolescence—a foundational time when self-esteem and personal dignity can benefit from support at school and affirmation by a caring teacher.
Utah's ill-fated laws form the last vestiges of our state's system of legal discrimination against LGBT citizens. Utah's anti-gay educational laws have been particularly pernicious and harmful because they target vulnerable teenagers.
The law puts teachers in untenable positions. A teacher may not be able to provide assurances to a student's heartfelt question: "Is it OK to be gay?" Educators may hesitate to show — or even recommend — the video message from the President of the United States encouraging gay students that "It Gets Better." Even the Supreme Court's marriage equality decision could be barred from the curriculum in Utah due to the vague statutory phrase "advocacy of homosexuality."
Professional educators fear repercussions for being perceived as helping gay students. Teachers may be afraid to teach perhaps the most pertinent fact about homosexuality: namely, that it is a normal and healthy variation of human sexuality. Gay students may never hear in school that "you are not alone" or "you are valued just the way you are." Sympathetic teachers — who may stand unknowingly at a crossroads of life or death for a student — are handcuffed by Utah law from reaching out to vulnerable gay youth.
It is no coincidence that Utah has a teen suicide crisis. LGBT teens are three times more likely than their heterosexual peers to attempt suicide. Suicide is now the second leading cause of death for Utah teens, at rates above the national average.
Utah's anti-gay educational laws are indefensible — morally as well as constitutionally — because they create a climate of fear and ignorance about homosexuality, propagate false views and stereotypes, and condemn LGBT students as second-class students whose identities are unworthy of celebration and support.
Thanks to U.S. Supreme Court jurisprudence, Utah's anti-gay educational laws are unconstitutional dead letters unlikely to survive Equality Utah's new lawsuit. As Justice Sandra O'Connor once explained, "Moral disapproval of a group cannot be a legitimate governmental interest under the Equal Protection Clause because legal classifications must not be 'drawn for the purpose of disadvantaging the group burdened by the law.'" And just as a law against yarmulkes targets Jews, the U.S. Supreme Court has made clear that laws about homosexuality target homosexuals.
Utah's ban on "advocacy of homosexuality" in public schools has no purposes other than to express moral disapproval of homosexuals and homosexuality. By its very terms, this statute conveys the unconstitutional message that gay people are somehow inferior.
Utahns should embrace a higher view of constitutionally protected liberties. What is truly at stake is human dignity and the potential inside every student to reach their potential — and together to reach our shared potential as a society. Utahns should revere the ideals expressed by Martin Luther King, Jr.: "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly."
Schools should be places of hope and optimism. There may be 25,000 students in Utah's public schools who are LGBT. Utah's anti-gay educational laws have been used to perpetuate a fiction that these gay children don't exist in our classrooms.
Gay teens and straight teens are equally entitled to a public education that celebrates their dignity and addresses their legitimate needs. Public schools should prepare all teens — straight and gay alike — for the challenges and rewards of marriage, child-rearing, and family life. Every student in Utah deserves an educational environment that respects their personal dignity and promotes their liberty and lifelong pursuit of happiness.
John W. Mackay, Paul C. Burke and Brett L. Tolman represented a national coalition of equality organizations that filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court in the landmark case successfully challenged parts of the Defense of Marriage Act.