Ill. Students Sue to Wear Anti-Gay T-Shirts; State Civil-Union Bill Advances

By Aysha Hussain

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March 22, 2007

On April 10, 2006, students at Neuqua Valley High School in Naperville, Ill., gathered together to honor the National Day of Silence, a youth-run movement where students are silent in order to demonstrate the stifling impact that discrimination has had and continues to have on the LGBT community. Among those students was Heidi Zamecnik, a 17-year-old senior who wore a T-shirt that said "My Day of Silence, Straight Alliance" on the front and "Be Happy, Not Gay" on the back.

According to a federal lawsuit filed Wednesday on behalf of Zamecnik and another student, school administrators told Zamecnik to change her shirt because school policy prohibits clothing with messages that may be perceived as offensive to other students. Gary McCaleb, spokesperson for Alliance Defense Fund, the Arizona-based litigatory group representing Zamecnik, stressed that Christians should be able to freely exchange their opposing viewpoints on gays and lesbians--notwithstanding the fact that Zamecnik deliberately wore an anti-gay T-shirt to undermine the one day a year that the nation recognizes the adverse impact such messages send to LGBT youth. His organization has filed eight similar lawsuits. The students in this case want federal judges to declare the school's dress code unconstitutional and are seeking a court injunction that would allow them to express their opposition to homosexuality on the day following the annual National Day of Silence, which will be held this year on April 18.

But Zamecnik got a taste of her own medicine. Coincidentally, Illinois' House Human Services Committee approved The Religious Freedom and Civil Union Act--a bill that would grant civil unions to same-sex couples that would afford them the same legal and civil rights as married couples--on the same day The Alliance Defense Fund filed suit against the school district on her behalf.

To date, only one state--Massachusetts--permits same-sex marriage. Only three states--Connecticut, Vermont and, most recently, New Jersey--allow civil unions for same-sex couples. Will Illinois be the fourth? And what message does it send to the LGBT community--to everyone--if Zamecnik succeeds in reversing school policy to allow anti-gay T-shirts after the National Day of Silence? There is a fine line between what we perceive as hate and exercising the freedom of expression and religion. How we look at the First Amendment is getting blurry--and as the Illinois civil-union bill advances, the state legislature will have to take a hard look at where it stands.