ORANGE, Calif. — Anthony Colin wanted to create a club at his high school where students could get together and promote tolerance of homosexuality.
Instead, his idea for a Gay-Straight Alliance Club has divided the community, generating threats, courtroom battles and heated school board meetings. One student was arrested for biting a principal.
"This whole thing has stopped being about my club. It's become this debate about sex," said Colin, 16, a sophomore at El Modena High School.
Although homosexual concerns — like anti-discrimination laws and lifestyle acceptance — have been discussed for decades, dealing with them in public schools is a recent development.
"Students are feeling more comfortable and, therefore, a little more courageous about coming forward" to ask for recognition of student clubs, said Julie Underwood of the National School Boards Association, which represents the country's 15,000 districts.
Since 1989, students have formed more than 700 Gay-Straight Alliance clubs at high schools across the country — about half came after the beating death two years ago of gay Wyoming college student Matthew Shepard.
The clubs, supported by the Gay, Lesbian, Student Education Network, or GLSEN, promote education and tolerance of homosexuality. They also advocate some activism, such as amending anti-bias policies at schools to include sexual orientation.
Efforts to form gay-oriented clubs are being met by resistance from parents, school officials and religious leaders. Battle lines between parents and club organizers have been drawn in California, Utah, Louisiana, Indiana and Florida. One Salt Lake school district eliminated all student clubs rather than allow a gay club, a ruling that is being appealed.
"We're for protecting all children. But this is about more than that," said Ed Vitagliano, director of research for American Family Association, a Mississippi-based conservative watchdog organization. "To us, this is just another demonstration . . . that there is a broader agenda out there."
"That's ridiculous," said Kevin Jennings, executive director of GLSEN. "We don't use children. We don't go to them. They come to us. Most of them we never hear from until there's a problem like in Orange County."
Michael Kozuch, the faculty adviser for the GSA at Newton South High School in Newton, Mass., said club members spend much of their time hosting dances, going to conferences and showing movies "just like other student clubs."
"They don't talk about sex. They talk about trying to educate people about homophobia and discrimination," he said.
The Family Research Council, a Washington, D.C.-based conservative research group, maintains that those efforts are "much more radical than people think."
"Some of the clubs have had school-wide seminars where they bring transsexuals in to talk about their lifestyle," said Pete LaBarbera, an analyst for the council. "Their reality is there is much more going on than meets the eye."
"Look, if this was elementary school, this would be an issue," replied Sarah Austin, the 16-year-old president of her school's GSA in Decatur, Ga. "But high school students, and I mean all high school students, have been having sex since the beginning of time.
"And if they're not having it, they are thinking about it," she said.
That's exactly what concerns parents in Orange County.
"That's my job to talk with my children about their sexuality. It belongs at home, not at school," said parent Jack McNiff.