Is Utah out to suppress high school clubs? Gay-straight alliances in the crosshairs.

The New York Times reports:

Most people would probably not consider the average high school chess club to be a hotbed of disorder or immorality. But a club is a club, and Utah has decided that student groups need some stern policing and regulation.

Next month, a 17-page law will take effect governing just about every nuance of public school extracurricular clubs, from kindergarten jump rope to high school drama. How groups can form, what they can discuss in their meetings, who can join, and what a principal must do if rules are violated are addressed.

But the school clubs law, signed last week by Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr., was not really intended to rein in the rowdies down at the audio-visual club, some lawmakers said. The real target was homosexuality.

“This is all about gay-straight alliance clubs, and anybody who tells you different is lying,” said State Senator Scott D. McCoy, Democrat from Salt Lake City, who voted against the law.
State Senator D. Chris Buttars, a Republican from the Salt Lake City suburbs and the law’s co-sponsor, said in an interview that he saw the need for the measure after parents from a high school in Provo, Utah, protested the formation of a gay-straight club in 2005.

But Mr. Buttars said his bill was intended to bring uniformity to the rules. The centerpiece, he said, is a clause giving school administrators the authority to ensure that clubs do not violate “the boundaries of socially appropriate behavior.”

“If a gay-straight club wants to meet together, as they say they do, just for friendship, I have no problem with that,” Mr. Buttars said. “But I think school districts should have the authority to do whatever they need to do protect their schools — the law gives them authority to make decisions to protect the physical, emotional, psychological or moral well being of students.”

The State Board of Education opposed the bill and asked Governor Huntsman to veto it. Carol Lear, a lawyer for the board, said in an interview that she feared that the complicated rules and the subjective decisions that might be made in defining the term “socially appropriate” could entangle principals in red tape and litigation.

More from the Salt Lake Tribune.