Diversity Day Denied

Viroqua, WI – Viroqua High School officials chose to cancel tomorrow’s Diversity Day activities after Liberty Counsel presented legal precedent requiring inclusion of the viewpoints of Christians and former homosexuals.

The school
scheduled sessions for the students that presented the viewpoints
of Hmong, Jews, Muslims, Native Americans, African-Americans, homosexuals,
Latinos, Buddhists, the physically disadvantaged, and the economically
disadvantaged, but not Christians or former homosexuals. Diversity
Day would have been held tomorrow, March 23, 2006.

After
a school official stated that the viewpoints of Christians and former
homosexuals would be excluded, a resident contacted Liberty Counsel
on behalf of many other concerned Viroqua residents.

On March
9, Liberty Counsel sent a letter to the District Administrator,
explaining that the censorship of the viewpoints of Christians and
former homosexuals violated the Establishment Clause and the Fourteenth
Amendment equal protection guarantee. Liberty Counsel sent another
letter on March 14 to the District Administrator and Board of Education.
Two days later, the District Administrator confirmed in a telephone
call that Diversity Day had been cancelled.

In 2004,
the Board also cancelled Diversity Day in response to a citizen
petition, but then reinstated it after spring elections changed
the members on the Board. Unlike 2004, however, this time school
officials were confronted with precedent from a federal district
court in Michigan that ruled unconstitutional a similar exclusion
from a Diversity Day panel.

We are pleased that the District cancelled Diversity Day
instead of censoring the viewpoints of Christians and former homosexuals.
One of the Diversity Day organizers labeled the former homosexual’s
viewpoint as “non-positive.” This is yet another attempt
to indoctrinate our youth with the harmful message that homosexuals
cannot change. While touting the message of tolerance, homosexual
activists refuse to be tolerant of opposing viewpoints. Our youth
deserve to know the truth about homosexuality – that people
can choose to overcome same-sex attractions and that acting on those
attractions results in devastating physical, mental, and spiritual
consequences.”

Mathew D. Staver is the president and general counsel of Liberty Counsel.