Franken spoke of several recent suicides of LGBT students around the country, including Justin Aaberg who attended the Anoka-Hennepin School District.

“Our federal laws say you cannot discriminate based on religion, race, sex, disability or national origin, but they do not explicitly prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex orientation or gender identity,” Franken told the committee. “We are faced with a a group of students that is facing pervasive systemic discrimination. They are being viciously harassed and bullied, they are dropping out of school, staying home from school and they are literally killing themselves. Our schools aren’t doing enough to stop it.”

Franken said he was disappointed that the amendment wouldn’t be added to the No Child Left Behind bill but that he would press to have it included when the full Senate takes up the bill.

“I would like to make it clear that if it came up for a vote, it would pass by bipartisan support,” he said.

Here are Franken’s remarks during the committee meeting on Thursday:

The petition was created through Credo Action, part of Working Assets which is a for-profit phone and credit company that donates to progressive causes, and garnered more than 140,000 signatures.

The blog Dump Bachmann published Bachmann’s response:

Thank you for taking the time to express your concerns about anti-gay bullying and harassment via the CREDO Action petition. As your Representative for the 6th district of Minnesota, your views are very important to me and I appreciate hearing from you.

Unquestionably, bullying is wrong. I agree that no student should feel belittled or threatened by peers at school. All human lives have undeniable value, and I urge parents, teachers, and students alike to champion this fact in our community and to address instances of bullying promptly and firmly when they occur.

As one of the members of the U.S. House of Representatives representing the Anoka-Hennepin School District, I am very aware and concerned about the cases of bullying and suicides that have occurred there. In response, my office has been in communication with both school officials and with individuals who have lost a loved one to suicide.

We all desire to see bullying brought to an end and the best interests of students served in our schools. Again, thank you for your commitment on this matter. I assure you I will continue to be a listening ear for any constituent wishing to express his or her view on this or any other issue.

Sincerely,

Michele Bachmann
Member of Congress

Bachmann has been questioned during her presidential campaign about the bullying in her district, shrugging off the question by saying it is not a “federal issue.”

Photo: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/stevenfernandez/2370347860/">John Steven Fernandez, Flickr</a>

Some teachers at Anoka-Hennepin School District have failed a teachers test because they refused to affirm that the district’s policy limiting discussions of LGBT issues in the district’s schools is intended to make “students feel safe.”

The district’s policy is at the heart of a culture war in the district and is the subject of a lawsuit by six students and their parents who say the district has not taken appropriate steps to prevent bullying against students who are, or are perceived to be, LGBT.

City Pages reported on Wednesday that a training test required by all teachers contains the question: “One of the goals of the Sexual Orientation Curriculum Policy is to ensure all of our students feel safe and respected in our classrooms and/or while participating in school activities: true or false?”

City Pages notes that several teachers in the district are refusing to answer “true,” which causes them to fail the training test.

The policy states that “Anoka-Hennepin staff, in the course of their professional duties, shall remain neutral on matters regarding sexual orientation including but not limited to student led discussions.”

Yet, the policy only targets LGBT issues. Mentions of heterosexuality are not covered by the policy, and that’s part of the reason the Southern Poverty Law Center and the National Center for Lesbian Rights have filed suit against the district on behalf of six students and their families.

The federal Department of Education and the Department of Justice have also launched investigations into the district after the suicide deaths of nine students in the past two years, several of whom were known to identify as LGBT.

CityPages also produced a cover story this week highlighting the suicide death of Erik Turbenson, who was a student at Anoka-Hennepin ten years ago. He was openly gay and took his own life after being bullying.

Michele Bachmann’s weekend trip to the Golden State to gather support and funds for her presidential bid drew protests and sharp questions from Tonight Show host Jay Leno over her stances and statements on rights for LGBT people.

At a campaign rally in Costa Mesa, Bachmann was asked by a rally-attendee what she plans to do about bullying in her district. The Anoka-Hennepin School District is largely within the district represented by Bachmann and has seen many high-profile events surrounding the bullying of LGBT students. Six of those students are suing the district.

“That’s not a federal issue,” she said, dodging the question.

Two days earlier, Tammy Aaberg, a mother in the district who lost her son to suicide in 2010, presented Bachmann’s district office with a petition signed by more than 100,000 people asking her to take a stand on bullying in schools. Her office said Bachmann might eventually respond to the petition.

Bachmann has spoken about bullying in school before. At a Minnesota Senate committee hearing on bullying in 2005, Bachmann said, “I think for all us our experience in public schools is there have always been bullies, always have been, always will be. I just don’t know how we’re ever going to get to point of zero tolerance and what does it mean?”

“One question would be what would be our definition of bullying? Will it get to the point where we are completely stifling free speech and expression? Will it mean that what form of behavior will there be, will we be expecting boys to be girls?” Bachmann asked. ”I just don’t know how we can realistically expect a zero tolerance of bullying behavior.”

Bachmann was in town to speak at the California Republican Convention in Los Angeles and found herself the target of a flash mob. About 100 people protested her stances on LGBT issues to the tune of Madonna’s “Like a Prayer.”

Then it was Bachmann’s time for an appearance on Jay Leno, where she would once again be questioned on her LGBT record.

Leno asked her, “That whole ‘pray the gay away’ thing, I don’t get that.”

Bachmann tried to deflect with a joke: “When I heard that I thought it was a mid-life crisis thing, ‘pray the gray away.’”

Leno pressed her, “To me, when I was a kid, they used to try and teach me to write right-handed … to me that’s the same thing if you’re gay. I’ve been married 31 years, first wife, very happy. Two gay guys get married, how does that affect my marriage?”

Bachmann responded: “The whole thing is, with clinics, whatever issue anyone has, we don’t discriminate, we don’t discriminate with people’s issues.”

Leno wanted to know why the gay thing was even an issue, and Bachmann responded, “The family is foundational and marriage between a man and a woman is what the law has been for years.”

U.S. Sen. Al Franken called for an “explicit ban” on discrimination against LGBT students in a civil rights hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee Wednesday.

Franken cited the high-profile lawsuit against Anoka-Hennepin School District, where six students and their families allege pervasive anti-LGBT harassment.

“My understanding is that LGBT persons are covered under the hate crimes act, and to the same extent that other groups like minorities and women [are],” Franken said. ”This Congress has said we need to protect LGBT Americans in the same way we protect other vulnerable groups, doesn’t it follow that we should protect LGBT students from bullying to the same extent that we protect other groups?”

Department of Justice Civil Rights Division head Thomas Perez responded that bullying against LGBT students has grown in recent years.

“The bullying of kids who are LGBT is probably our largest growth area in our docket,” Perez said, citing investigations in multiple states. ”And we have an investigation in your neck of the woods in a matter,” referring to allegations of discrimination in the Anoka-Hennepin School District.

Perez said the issue was one of “safety, whether it’s kids who are gay or kids who are Muslim or kids who speak English with an accent.”

“This is an emerging growth area, I regret to say. That’s why the president had a day-long summit on bullying and I very much appreciate you leadership in this area,” Perez told Franken, offering his support for the Student Non-Discrimination Act. ”Kids are dying, kids are being brutally assaulted, kids are scared.”

Franken mentioned the suit brought by the National Center for Lesbian Rights on behalf of a gay student at Anoka-Hennepin who was a “victim of harassment.”

“A student who I will call ‘E.R.’ faced physical assaults and pervasive bullying based solely on her sexual orientation and appearance,” Franken said. ”Sadly, harassment for students based on sexual orientation and gender identity is frequent and disturbing, and while the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Act provides some protection based against sexual orientation based violence, it’s clearly not doing enough for LGBT students.

Franken said that “we need an explicit ban” on discrimination against LGBT students in schools.

On Tuesday, the New York Times featured a front page article about the Anoka-Hennepin School District and its two-year long struggle to defend policies that limit discussion of LGBT issues in district schools. It’s an issue the Minnesota Independent has covered from the beginning. The following is a full account of the dispute.

In August of 2009, news broke that two teachers were accused of harassing a student they thought was gay, the district paid out a $25,000 settlement. The teachers have maintained their innocence throughout.

The news spurred a demonstration at the August 2009 school board meeting, where students, teachers and staffed raised concerns that this case of harassment was not an isolated incident. From that meeting the Gay Equity Team was born.

In September, the teachers were put on leave by the school district.

A year later, Tammy Aaberg publicly told the story of her son, Justin, who took his own life in July of 2010. There was also controversy over the “sexual orientation policy,” a school board directive that limits discussions of LGBT issues in the classroom, which LGBT advocates say contributes to a hostile environment for students.

The Parents Action League (PAL), a group of conservative Christians, advocated for therapy to turn gay kids straight. The group’s members testified at school board meetings that LGBT kids lead an unhealthy lifestyle and that LGBT issues should be barred from district schools.

The group was at first secretive. When the Minnesota Independent asked who founded the group and if it had any connections to other “pro-family” groups in the state, an unsigned email came back: “We think our website explains very well what we’re about and who founded it—citizens in the Anoka-Hennepin School District.”

When questioned about ways to get more information about the group’s activities, the Independent was told via email, “We do not see your name on our on-line petition. Once you sign the petition, we may be contacting you.” (Emphasis is theirs).

The group also laid out it’s ideology: It wanted the district to “respect traditional family values” and to “provide valid resources for students (and their families) struggling with sexual identity and/or same-sex attraction.” It sought to “ensure that all health curriculum teach healthy sexuality and promote abstinence until marriage.” The group also wanted the district to “promote the Day of Truth” each year, a movement spurred on by conservative Christian activists.

After the Minnesota Independent reported on the PAL, the group shut down their website and removed all anti-LGBT content:

This site is under construction until further notice.

We have never been inundated with so much hate and disdain for a differing viewpoint than that of the pro-gay movement. Our group has NEVER written anything hateful on our site or to any member of the GET [Gay Equity Team] group with whom we strongly disagree. Apparently, tolerance, kindness and decency are only to be extended to the pro-gay viewpoint—talk about your bullying!

In September 2010, LGBT advocates again attended the school board meeting, and the Minnesota Independent asked the district’s spokesperson if the sexual orientation policy covered all sexual orientations or just those that involve gays, lesbians and bisexuals. The district acknowledged that is only targeted at LGBT students.

The Minnesota Family Council accused “homosexual activists” of manipulating Justin Aaberg’s suicide for political gain. The Minnesota Independent reported on those comments—though the Family Council took issue with the characterization. The comments prompted Sen. Al Franken to respond, and Tom Prichard, the group’s president sat down with Anderson Cooper to talk about the Minnesota Family Council’s strong opposition to anti-bullying policies that target LGBT students.

In October 2010, the district announced that it had changed its anti-bullying policy to include sexual orientation. The changes were hailed by parents and staff, but they also added that it did not go far enough in protecting LGBT students.

At a school board meeting that month, Julie Blaha, president of the teachers union told students in the district address: “Your teachers want you to know that we hear you,” Blaha said. “To all our students who are suffering because of bullying and unsupportive schools, your teachers want you to know that we will work to make it better.”

By December’s meeting, heated words were being exchanged between board members and parents during the public comment period. The board had released a statement saying that “based on all the information we’ve been able to gather, none of the suicides were connected to incidents of bullying or harassment.”

The parents continued to contend that that simply wasn’t true.

At the end of December, Barb Anderson, a staffer from the Minnesota Family Council who was also a spokesperson for the Parents Action League appeared on the radio program of Americans for the Truth About Homosexuality, which is listed as an anti-gay hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Anderson said that it was LGBT groups’ fault that kids got bullied.

“They are creating an environment where these children that are sexually confused suddenly become affirmed as a homosexual or that they are born that way, and then these kids are locked into a lifestyle with their choices limited, and many times this can be disastrous to them as they get into the behavior which leads to disease and death in some cases,” she said. “So, it’s really… They are the ones that are contributing to an atmosphere that can even increase bullying as more kids get into this kind of a lifestyle.”

In January, the school district took heat for attempting to prevent a lesbian couple from participating in the Snow Days coronation. Students had previously walked in as male-female couples, but the school changed the rules to prevent the lesbian couples from walking.

As a result the Southern Poverty Law Center and the National Center for Lesbian Rights filed suit on behalf of the couple.

The district relented and the couple was able to participate.

Tempers continued to flare at the March 2011 school board meeting as members of both the Gay Equity Team and the Parent Action League took turns testifying. One woman was even kicked out of the meeting after shouting, “If they are going to hell, I’m going to hell with them!”

By May, the Southern Poverty Law Center and the National Center for Lesbian Rights had threatened to sue the district for its overall policy. “While we appreciate that the District has recently taken some superficial steps to address bullying, our investigation confirms that lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (‘LGBT’) students and those perceived as LGBT within the District remain in jeopardy in a hostile and alienating environment,” the groups said in a letter to district officials.

The school district continued to reject efforts to repeal the sexual orientation policy and it gained support from conservative Christian groups. The Alliance Defense Fund, a religious right legal outfit started by Pat Robertson and James Dobson, sent the district a letter as well in June.

Then, in August, the SPLC and NCLR filed suit against the district on behalf of five students and their parents. The lawsuit detailed horrendous taunting and physical abuse by fellow students and inaction by district staff. At the same time, the Department of Justice acknowledged that it was investigating as well.

Reporting by the Minnesota Independent was used as evidence in the complaint including statements made by district staff and Anderson of PAL and MFC.

Several days after the lawsuit was filed, a sixth student came forward alleging serious bullying and joined the lawsuit with the other five.

The district continued to defend its policies throughout August despite harsh criticism by local papers.

Then, the Parents Action League jumped in with a petition to the school board that warned of the “homosexual agenda” and that LGBT people suffer “life-threatening health risks.”

The August school board meeting was a contentious one. PAL brought its petition to the board and spoke out against the “homosexual agenda,” while supporters of LGBT students noted that PAL had hitched its wagon to the Minnesota Family Council.

In late August, the Minnesota Independent profiled the district’s history in the culture war, where conservative Christian activists sought to ban books, teach creationism and remove a transgender woman from a teaching position.

The U.S. Department of Justice is investigating civil rights complaints about harassment of the district’s gay students, although conservatives from the Minnesota Family Council told the New York Times that they were mobilizing to oppose any changes to the district’s policy.

The Anoka-Hennepin School District and lawyers for six students who sued the district over bullying began talks this week in an attempt to reach a settlement. While those talks were underway, the Parents Action League submitted a petition to the school board urging it not to budge on a policy that limits discussion of LGBT issues in the schools. And PAL came under scrutiny by other parents who questioned the group’s ties to the Minnesota Family Council.

The district and lawyers for the students met early this week in hopes that a settlement could be reached in the lawsuit. Both sides have declined to comment on the talks other than to say they were productive. The dialogue ended Tuesday without resolution, and no more discussions have been scheduled.

On Monday, the Parents Action League, a group of conservative Christian parents in the district, appealed to school officials to maintain its “neutrality policy,” a directive enacted two years ago that limits discussions of LGBT issues in the district and one that the lawsuit alleges creates a hostile environment for LGBT students.

“I’m here on behalf of the Parents Action League to support the sexual orientation policy,” said Lori Thompson at Monday’s school board meeting. “It is an excellent policy. It honors the rights of all parents and guardians. We feel that teachers should not be injecting their personal views in the classroom on any subject.”

Thompson said the group had gathered 1,052 signatures.

“We, the Parents Action League, along with every person who put their name on the petition, are asking the board to please keep the sexual orientation policy in place and keep controversial social issues at home where they belong,” Thompson said.

After Thompson addressed the board, Kevin Peterson of Brooklyn Center also urged that the policy be maintained — and then revealed he was once gay.

“I used to be gay, back in the ’80s and ’90s,” he said. “I used to be a member of Act Up and marched in a few gay pride parades.”

“I was trying to get our agenda into high schools and even elementary schools,” he added.

Peterson claimed that most people who are LGBT don’t want to be.

“Most people with same-sex attraction don’t like this about themselves and don’t want to act on those attractions,” he said. “In other words most homosexuals are not gay, and we gay activists knew that it was very important to reach those sexually confused people. We wanted the young guys top know that they shouldn’t be confused about those attractions that they should understand that they can’t possibly change and gay is good.”

He said it was all about recruitment.

“What I was doing in effect was recruiting them to be gay and get into the lifestyle. That’s what happened to me when i got into college.”

But not all testifiers at Monday night’s meeting were in support of the policy. Parent Melissa Thompson said many forms of diversity are discussed in Anoka-Hennepin schools and questioned why sexual orientation is being singled out.

“You don’t need to take on a belief to respect the person who has it,” she said. “We openly discuss and recognize all kinds of diversity from cultural to religious to economic, so I ask you why we refuse to acknowledge anything gay in our schools?”

She added, “Nobody is asking that homosexuality be taught, quite simply because it can’t be. But just because someone refuses to believe that people are born gay doesn’t change that fact for a gay person. The idea that if we deny something that offends us it will disappear is childish, hurtful and hardly neutral.”

Thompson was also critical of the activities of the Parents Action League.

“I recently received an email directly from Lori Thompson of the Parents Action League soliciting my signature. She received my email address from the Minnesota Family Council, and I have a copy of the email for you all to see that,” she said, holding up a copy of the email. “It was directly solicited from this political group that has made a career out of disrespecting children in our district. I want to show the connection.”

PAL’s spokesperson, at least in the past, has been Barb Anderson who works for the Minnesota Family Council. Anderson recently appeared on the radio program of Americans for the Truth About Homosexuality, an organization the Southern Poverty Law Center lists as a hate group. In that interview, Anderson said she’s tried to get “ex-gay” therapy into the district’s schools and blamed LGBT groups for the bullying of LGBT students.

Thompson raised another concern about PAL to the school board; she says the group has been soliciting signatures from students.

“The other concern I have is the fact that they solicit signatures from children as young as 13,” she said. “Now, they want to paint us as being inappropriate in regard to children, but to put children in that position is beyond unacceptable.”

The Anoka-Hennepin School District is defending its policies in light of lawsuits by six district students, unfavorable coverage on the editorial pages of area newspapers and a renewed national spotlight on the accusation of an unsafe environment for LGBT youth in the district’s schools. The district says its policies are not to blame for bullying in the district, but others have charged that the schools’ policy that limits LGBT discussions in schools is harmful to students.

Last week, the Star Tribune editorial board called the school district “gutless.”

“While polls show that Americans increasingly favor tolerance and equal rights for gays, Anoka-Hennepin is stuck in the past, hiding behind an ambiguous policy in the name of neutrality,” the paper wrote. “It’s simply wrong not to do everything possible to prevent harassment or bullying of children who may strike some of their peers as different.”

Albert Lea Tribune columnist Alexandra Kloster echoed those sentiments.

“Most teachers know the difference between leading a discussion and promoting personal opinions,” she wrote. “To think that inviting a frank exchange about relevant and urgent topics into the classroom is the same as endorsing a top-secret gay agenda (whatever that is) exposes an overly simplistic leap into faulty judgment. Children, especially teenagers, crave openness and candor.”

Supt. Dennis Carlson

District superintendent Dennis Carlson penned his own response to critics in a piece at the Star Tribune.

“In spite of all our efforts to be truthful and accurate, the wrong information was repeated in the media yet again,” he wrote. “So far, the role of those in media has been to pick a side and ignore all who might present information that doesn’t conveniently fit the one-sided story or editorial they are creating. We do not see gay students as living an abnormal lifestyle or as sinners. We see them as our students, accept them as they are and are proud to have each of them in our student body.”

While the district says it doesn’t see LGBT students as sinners, some who have rushed to the district’s defense do.

Janet Boynes, a self-described ex-lesbian whose book has been promoted by presidential candidate Michele Bachmann’s husband Marcus, penned a letter to the editor of the local paper.

“I rejected men and for 14 years lived in lesbian relationships. It was a counterfeit to God’s plan for my life. No one should be promoting Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender (GLBT) behaviors. They are not born that way. There is no scientific evidence that proves they are. None,” she wrote. “If we really care about our young people, we will do everything to steer them away from homosexuality and transgenderism, and the unhealthy sexual acts that are a part of these lifestyles.”

On the other side, LGBT students in the district have taken matters into their own hands and hosted the first ever Anoka LGBTQ Youth Pride. About 300 people showed up to the event which was intended to show the district’s youth that the area is welcoming to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transexual and queer people.

Last Monday, a student filed a lawsuit against the Anoka-Hennepin School District, the state’s largest district, alleging that her school failed to adequately respond to bullying by classmates. It brings the number of students suing the district to six. CNN reported last month that the federal Department of Justice and the Department of Education are investigating reports of civil rights violations in the school district.

A student filed suit against the Anoka-Hennepin School District on Monday alleging that the school district did not do enough to protect her from bullying. Filed by the National Center for Lesbian Rights, the new suit alleges that a lesbian student was repeatedly harassed, both verbally and physically, and that the school undertook disciplinary action against the student instead of her tormentors. The suit follows a similar lawsuit against the district filed in July and brings the number of students suing the school to six.

A student at Jackson Middle School in Champlin, identified in the complaint only as E.R., endured bullying from the first day she transferred to the school as an 8th grader, according to the complaint. She was “subject to severe and pervasive harassment in gym class,” the complaint states. “When E.R. attempted to use the girls’ locker room for the first time, other female students openly mocked her, saying things like, ‘That’s a boy – there’s no boys allowed in here,’ and calling her a ‘he/she.’”

Instead of reprimanding the offending students, the complaint alleges, E.R. was told by school staff that she must change her gym clothes at a separate time as the others students.

“Predictably, further isolating and stigmatizing E.R. served only to increase the harassment,” the complaint contends. “The other students continued to mock her in class, saying that she had to use the locker room separately from other students because she ‘doesn’t know what locker room to use’ and calling her slurs like ‘he/she’ and ‘faggot.’”

The harassment extended beyond gym class to other areas of the school, according to the complaint: School administrators prohibited E.R. from eating lunch with other students and instructed her to walk through the hallways at times when other students were present.

“School officials made clear that these steps were taken as disciplinary measures against E.R., and never suggested that these steps were intended to protect her from harassment,” the court filings state. “In April, school officials cut E.R.’s class schedule to a half day.”

E.R.’s claims are similar to those of five other district students who are suing based on civil rights violations. The lawsuit’s claim that a discriminatory policy based on sexual orientation, dubbed the “neutrality policy,” has hindered staff from addressing anti-LGBT bullying and created an atmosphere that isn’t safe for LGBT students or students perceived to be lesbian, gay, bisexual or transsexual.

“This is yet another incredibly distressing example of how the district’s shameful policy has hurt kids,” NCLR Executive Director Kate Kendell said in a statement. “The district has to stop turning its back on children, and recognize that its illegal policy that singles out those who are LGBT is the reason that so many children in their schools continue to be tormented — verbally, physically, and emotionally — every day.”

Anoka-Hennepin School District, the largest in the state of Minnesota, has been at the center of a tug of war between the LGBT community, which says the district is not safe for students, and religious right parents, who want all mentions of LGBT issues stricken from school curricula and programming. At issue is a policy that restricts LGBT content in the schools, a policy the school district said on Monday it would not change. In response, a pair of civil rights groups filed a lawsuit Thursday morning. In addition, federal authorities have opened an investigation into the school district.

“There is something seriously wrong in the Anoka-Hennepin School District, and district officials know it,” said Kate Kendell, executive director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR). “In school after school, kids who are perceived as gay are harassed mercilessly until they drop out, melt down, or lash back. This epidemic of harassment—unlike anything we’ve seen in neighboring districts — is plainly fueled by the district’s shameful and illegal policy singling out LGBT people and LGBT people alone for total exclusion from acknowledgment within the classroom.”

The NCLR, along with the Southern Poverty Law Center, filed suit on behalf of five of the district’s students on Thursday. The students allege harassment because they identify as or are perceived to be LGBT, and the lawsuit targets the district’s “sexual orientation curriculum policy,” which limits discussions of LGBT issues in the classroom and in school programming.

That policy says that discussion of sexual orientation should be “addressed within individual family homes, churches or community organizations.” The policy has been vociferously defended by the Parents Action League, a group of conservative Christian parents headed up by Minnesota Family Council staffer Barb Anderson.

In an interview late last year with Americans for the Truth About Homosexuality (AFTAH), a group that has been designated by the SPLC as a hate group, Anderson boasted of success in efforts to keep LGBT content out of the schools and said it’s the fault of LGBT community leaders that LGBT students get bullied.

“That is one of the tactics that they are using now, to say that by not legitimizing and normalizing homosexuality, we are creating an atmosphere in the schools that is hostile to quote-end-quote gay kids,” she said. “What they are doing is just the opposite themselves. They are creating an environment where these children that are sexually confused suddenly become affirmed as a homosexual or that they are born that way, and then these kids are locked into a lifestyle with their choices limited, and many times this can be disastrous to them as they get into the behavior which leads to disease and death in some cases.”

She added, “So, it’s really… They are the ones that are contributing to an atmosphere that can even increase bullying as more kids get into this kind of a lifestyle.”

The sexual orientation policy itself is rooted in a previous 1995 policy that said homosexuality should not be “taught/addressed as a normal, valid lifestyle” in the schools.

This spring, NCLR and SPLC urged the district to change the policy and foster a safer environment for LGBT student or it would file a civil rights lawsuit.

And just before the lawsuit was filed, CNN uncovered documents on Monday that showed the Department of Justice and the Department of Education were investigating reports of civil rights violations in the school district.

Last week, residents of Anoka-Hennepin submitted a petition with over 12,000 names asking the board to rescind the sexual orientation policy. Community members have sought the scrapping of the policy, calling on the board to make changes after a spate of suicides among district students which some say are the result of bullying based on sexual orientation.

“The way things look now, I don’t see that happening,” said school board chair Tom Heideman of scrapping the policy. “We worked with groups on both sides of the issue when we wrote that policy and we’ve received petitions from both sides. We haven’t heard anything that really tells us we’ve got a bad policy.”

Then, on Monday, the school district released a statement saying it had no intention of changing the policy.

That triggered today’s lawsuit, which alleges violations of students’ equal protection rights under the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, federal Title 9 rules and the Minnesota Human Rights Act.

The SPLC’s Sam Wolfe, told reporters on Thursday, “What we found was a pattern throughout the entire school district, students that are being harassed verbally and physically because of their perceived differences. They’ve all been verbally harassed, such as being called faggot, dyke, whore.”

He continued, “One kid with two fathers, the other kids would say things like, ‘Your dads are gay, you must be, too. Why don’t you suck their cocks?’”

He said that students had endured physical abuse, including being pushed down stairs and thrown into lockers and garbage cans,. One student was stabbed in the neck with a pencil because other students that he was gay.

“In too many instances the school response was woefully inadequate,” Wolfe said.

NCLR’s Kendall said the stories her group has heard from students are “truly hair-raising and stomach-turning.”

Alona Turner of the NCLR said the sexual orientation policy impacts teachers as well.

“Teachers have been told that they can’t mention gay people were killed by the Nazis and are prevented from mentioning that the major medical positions have rejected the idea that homosexuality is a choice choice,” she said.

“The district calls it a neutrality policy, but it does not bar discussions or mentions of heterosexuals or heterosexuality.”

She called the level of harassment in Anoka-Hennepin a “unique situation” that the group hasn’t seen elsewhere in Minnesota and that the sexual orientation policy is the only one of its kind that the group knows of in the country.

Kendall said if it affected anyone other than LGBT people, there would be outrage.

“If there was a policy that said we aren’t going to talk about Mormons or the contributions of Native Americans, we would never tolerate it. We would see it for what it is. It’s bigotry,” she said.

She added, “This is Michele Bachmann’s district. I think there are members of this school board that share her cruel and inhumane views toward LGBT people, and I think it has a lot to do with why this policy was enacted and why it survives.”

Three of Anoka-Hennepin school board members, including the board chair, are up for re-election this fall.