Subject: *QL-ED*: Anti-Gay Alabama Law Debated

From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 28 Jan 1997 12:36:46 -0500 (EST)

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                  AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION
                               <A HREF="http://www.aclu.org">http://www.aclu.o
rg</A> 
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                              News from the ACLU...
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             Federal Appeals Court Debates Alabama Law 
               Barring Gay Student Groups from Campus

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Tuesday, January 28, 1997

ATLANTA -- In a closely watched case about the rights of gay students,
a federal appeals court today heard a challenge to an Alabama law
seeking to keep lesbian, gay and bisexual student groups off
university campuses.

    The American Civil Liberties Union, which brought the challenge,
told a panel of the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals that the law
is in clear violation of the students' First Amendment rights to free
speech and association.

    "Lesbian and gay students should be able to meet and discuss their
common interests like everyone else," said Matt Coles, director of the
ACLU's Lesbian and Gay Rights Project, who presented the argument
today.  "Colleges should be a place of open discourse and equal
opportunity.  This law contradicts that purpose, and seeks to exclude
lesbian and gay students from the fabric of campus life."

    Alabama had appealed a lower court decision delivered a year ago
that the statute is "naked viewpoint discrimination" and wholly
unenforceable.

    In that decision, U.S. District Judge Myron H. Thompson called the
law an "open effort by the state legislature to limit the sexuality
discussion in institutions of higher learning to only one viewpoint:
that of heterosexual people."  "This viewpoint limitation," he added,
"violates the First Amendment." 

    The contested statute, Section 16-1-28 of the Alabama's Education
Code, sought to bar  "any college or university from spending public
funds or using public facilities ... to sanction, recognize, or
support any group that promotes a lifestyle or actions prohibited by
the sodomy and sexual misconduct laws" of the state.
  
    The law swept through the Alabama legislature in 1992 after
officials at Auburn University granted official recognition to a gay
student group there.  The ACLU brought its challenge when the state 
invoked the recently enacted law against the Gay Lesbian Bisexual
Alliance at the University of South Alabama, a state-run college in
Mobile.  

     The alliance had sought official recognition from the university
in order to further its mission to create a supportive environment for
gay, lesbian and bisexual students, as well as to foster discussion
about homophobia and AIDS prevention.

    Judge Thompson wrote that because of the law, the group "has been
denied on-campus banking facilities, disqualified from receiving
funding, and subjected to an intrusive and highly personal fact-finding
investigation."

    Alan Clampett, president of the alliance, said the ruling had
"lifted the cloud" over the group and has helped the group "earn
respect on campus as we continue to educate other students about our
call for equality."

    Arguments in the case were heard today by a three-judge panel of
the 11th Circuit comprised of Judges Joel F. Dubina, Susan H. Black
and William C. O'Kelley.

    The ACLU Lesbian and Gay Rights Project is joined in the case by
the ACLU of Alabama, with Fern Singer of the Birmingham-based law firm of
Sirote & Permutt serving as its cooperating attorney.      

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