Fliers Mock Gays at School With Disputed Club

Hundreds of crude fliers seeming to advertise a gay dating service were found Monday plastered throughout El Modena High School in Orange, where a controversial gay-straight club won a federal court order last week allowing it to meet.

The fliers drew a quick rebuke from Orange Unified School District officials, who sought to defuse tensions at the suburban campus. The school has found itself in the national spotlight because of the court battle over students’ rights to free expression versus a school’s authority over clubs it hosts.

District officials don’t know exactly how many fliers had been posted or distributed on the 1,900-student campus Monday. It was “a pretty large number,” said Orange Unified spokeswoman Judy Frutig. “We believe they were shoved in the lockers of every student. We believe it was done by an outsider, just by the message. It was directed in a very obscene way toward anyone connected with El Modena.”

Orange police, asked to investigate, determined that the fliers were not threatening and that their distribution on campus didn’t constitute a crime. But the executive director of the Orange County Human Relations Commission said the handbills certainly could be viewed as a “hate incident” born of the charged atmosphere surrounding the club.

The fliers, apparently adapted from an ad for a gay dating service, show two nearly nude men embracing. They advertise “voice personals & live chat” with the school’s telephone number handwritten on the page. At the bottom, also handwritten, is “Come on ELMO[dena], don’t be shy! You’re either gay or you’re bi!” The handbills didn’t mention any students by name.

“Obviously, the school board has no intention of hurting anyone, but there are people on the fringes of society, the hatemongers, who will,” said Rusty Kennedy, the Human Relations Commission’s executive director. “Now is a real important time to be cool and go forward in a way that heals.”

Kennedy praised El Modena High Principal Nancy Murray for condemning the fliers over the campus public address system. Murray did not return a call seeking comment Monday.

Monday’s discovery comes on the heels of a preliminary injunction issued Friday by U.S. District Judge David O. Carter. In it, he ordered the district to let the Gay-Straight Alliance club meet while the lawsuit filed by student club founders Anthony Colin and Heather Zetin works its way through the courts. The students sued under the federal Equal Access Act of 1984, which says a public school that allows nonacademic clubs to meet on campus--as El Modena High does--cannot bar others based on what might be discussed at meetings.

School district trustees, who unanimously barred the club from the school in December, have not decided whether to appeal the injunction. Trustees met in closed session Friday evening but otherwise have taken no action. They will meet again in closed session Thursday.

Colin, 15, and Zetin, 16, were angered by the fliers, which they said had a sexual message that is contrary to the Gay-Straight Alliance club’s mission. The students said the club’s aim is to promote respect and understanding among students, not to discuss sex. They plan to hold their first on-campus meeting over lunch Wednesday.

“It disturbed me to an extent, then it enraged me,” said Colin, a sophomore who said he felt comforted by the principal’s response Monday to the handbills.

“I had people coming up [at school] and assuming Heather and I did this, after six months of fighting for this club and telling everyone it was not about sex,” he added. “That really got on my nerves.”

School custodians first found dozens of the fliers on school walls over the weekend. Most had been torn down before students arrived Monday morning. But others were found stuffed in lockers.

Police were called to investigate, but the matter was being referred back to the district, said Orange Police Capt. Art Romo.

“This is more of a school issue than a police issue,” Romo said. “We’re not trying to inflame the situation, as it is. We’re referring any [disciplinary] action to the school.”

Because the campus was open much of the weekend, people could have posted the fliers without trespassing, Romo said. “When you look at the flier, there’s no threat implied. I’m sure it was meant to stir things up.”

Frutig said the district is investigating the matter and will discipline any student found to be involved. “The school and the school district will not tolerate any harassment or discrimination directed at the Gay-Straight Alliance club or its members,” she said.

The club controversy has attracted intense outside interest for weeks. Club opponents who cheered the board’s earlier decision to ban it waved placards that read “Grades Not AIDS.” On Friday, picketers who had traveled from Utah to the federal courthouse in Santa Ana held signs depicting emaciated AIDS patients near death. Gay rights activists also have been drawn to the case, lending moral and legal support to the teens and club members, some of whom are not gay.

El Modena students first sought to form their club in September but were delayed and eventually denied by trustees. The students, backed by the Lambda Legal Defense and Educational Fund, the People for the American Way Foundation and the law firm of Irell & Manella, filed a federal lawsuit against the district under the landmark access law enacted to allow Bible clubs to meet at public schools after hours.

The school district, however, has argued that the club is not covered by the law because club discussions could cover curricular topics, including sex education. Thus, officials argued, the club could interfere with the school’s duty to provide appropriate sex education in accordance with state regulations.