The New York Times
Sunday 30 December 2007
Los Angeles - Conservative groups in California are gathering signatures to try to block an anti-discrimination bill because it includes language that would extend protection to public-school students based on their sexual orientation and gender identity.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, signed the bill in October, but it does not become law until Jan. 1. Opponents have until Jan. 10 to gather 500,000 signatures to put a referendum on the next ballot.
Lawyers for two groups, the Alliance Defense Fund and Advocates for Faith and Freedom, sued the state in a federal court in San Diego soon after the bill was signed to oppose the definition of "gender" and the inclusion of "sexual orientation" in the education code.
California defines gender - along with other protected classes like race, nationality, disability and religion - as "actual or perceived." The groups opposing the bill say that definition could lead to false accusations of discrimination.
"This lawsuit argues that the redefinition of gender should be declared unconstitutional because it is too vague," said Jennifer Monk, a lawyer for Advocates for Faith and Freedom. "If it's not based on physical anatomy or how they act or dress, and it's all based on what they think they are, then how is a teacher to know how a student identifies?"
Ms. Monk and Karen England, executive director of the Capitol Resource Institute, a conservative policy group based in Sacramento that is not a party to the suit, have raised concerns that self-defined gender identification could enable boys to enter girls' locker rooms and bathrooms, violating privacy laws.
Equality California, which worked to build support for the bill, and the Gay-Straight Alliance Network filed a motion to intervene in San Diego on Dec. 21, saying they should be heard in the lawsuit as parties with a vested interest in the court's decision.
"The same concocted concerns could theoretically apply to any of the categories," said Shannon Minter, legal director for the National Center for Lesbian Rights, who filed the motion to intervene on behalf of the two groups. "A student could identify as African-American or Muslim or Jewish, even if others do not perceive that student as such."
Mr. Minter said the complaint by the conservative groups sought to erase protections for only lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youths. "They are simply attacking L.G.B.T. students in California," he said.
The Gay-Straight Alliance Network has 10,000 student members in California schools who worked in support of the bill and who would benefit from the protections it provides to gay and lesbian students, said Carolyn Laub, executive director of the network. The bill also extends protection to people "associated" with students who identify with the protected groups.
The Capitol Resource Institute is working to gather the required signatures to put a referendum on the state ballot in June. If it succeeds, the bill would be suspended until the vote.
Until now, the definitions of categories like race, nationality, gender and sexual orientation existed only in the hate-crimes statute of the penal code. Educators had to consult education statutes and then cross-reference them with the penal code to navigate anti-discrimination laws.
"What this bill did was clean up the code," Mr. Minter said. "It was not a substantive change to the law."
California legislators amended the hate crimes statute in 1994 to define each of the protected classes as actual or perceived characteristics of identity.
In 2000, the California Student Safety and Violence Prevention Act added gender and sexual orientation as protected categories in the education code and referenced the penal code definitions.
Conservative groups have been working since then to overturn the inclusion of those categories in the education code.
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