Judge: Excluding anti-gay view at school forum troubling
Excluding a cleric opposed to homosexuality from a school-sponsored forum on gays and religion was akin to Nazi book burning of the 1930s, a federal judge said Monday.
Hinting at how he might rule in a lawsuit filed by former Pioneer High School student Elizabeth Hansen, U.S. District Judge Gerald Rosen said during a two-hour hearing that he is troubled that school officials at the Ann Arbor high school allowed only pro-gay clergy to participate in the discussion during the school's Diversity Week program in March 2002. He said the panelists expressed only the view that school officials and the school's Gay/Straight Alliance wanted to project.
"Isn't this cultural hegemony, where you're only going to present one view to the exclusion of others?" Rosen asked, demanding to know why school officials were afraid of letting students consider diverse viewpoints.
