Lawsuit defends teen's "that's so gay" putdown

[Ian David]

published Wednesday, February 28, 2007

When a few classmates razzed Rebeka Rice about her Mormon upbringing with questions such as, ''Do you have 10 moms?'' she shot back: ''That's so gay.''

Those three words landed the high school freshman in the principal's office and resulted in a lawsuit that raises this question: When do playground insults used every day all over America cross the line into hate speech that must be stamped out?

After Rice got a warning and a notation in her file, her parents sued, claiming officials at Santa Rosa's Maria Carillo High violated their daughter's First Amendment rights when they disciplined her for uttering a phrase ''which enjoys widespread currency in youth culture,'' according to court documents.

Testifying last week about the 2002 incident, Rice, now 18, said that when she uttered those words, she was not referring to anyone's sexual orientation. She said the phrase meant: "That's so stupid, that's so silly, that's so dumb."

But school officials say they took a strict stand against the putdown after two boys were paid to beat up a gay student the year before.

"The district has a statutory duty to protect gay students from harassment," the district's lawyers argued in a legal brief. "In furtherance of this goal, prohibition of the phrase 'That's so gay' . . . was a reasonable regulation."

More:
http://www.gay.com/news/article.html?2007/02/28/4

[RC]

1. Duh!

It's ok to razz a person about their religion here?
Does someone have to get beat up on every issue to put a stop to the harassing.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

5. the problem is that the kids who were mocking the religion may not have been gay.

its using homophobic slurs that is probably ending up creating a hostile environment to a third party.

[Meeker Morgan]

2. Sorry. Name calling does not rate a lawsuit. n/t

[Creideiki]

3. Actually...

if it's establishing a hostile environment for students, then it is about the lawsuit.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

4. normally i think "Thats so gay" is a horrendous thing to say

but these kids also were mocking someone's religion. i think they should all get sued.

[hedgehog]

6. I think this is a case of the meaning of a word drifting again.

At one time, the word gay did not mean homosexual. For years some people have complained about how gays "ruined a good word". In this case, what may have started as an anti-gay pejorative has shed those connotations among certain age groups and has come to mean "That's so stupid, that's so silly, that's so dumb." I wonder how this happened? Maybe it was being used as a pejorative and then was turned around by the targets. Who knows?