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Students Protest Special Regulations For Gay-Straight Alliance At Tennessee School

The school board has suggested forcing students to get parental permission before joining.

A group of people supporting the Gay-Straight Alliance at Franklin County High School clashed with anti-gay protesters outside a school board meeting in Franklin County, Tennessee Monday night, where school administrators discussed ongoing tensions surrounding the group's formation in January.

Some parents insist the GSA 'celebrates' an alternative (read: un-Christian) lifestyle, and are fighting for the group to be banned over fears it promotes things like "fisting [and] rimming," and will "recruit" kids to be gay.

Last month, one parent went so far as to compare the Gay-Straight Alliance to ISIS, calling it "F.I.M.A., the Future ISIS Members of America" in an angry Facebook post.

The New Civil Rights Movement reports that inside the school board meeting, members proposed special regulations in lieu of disbanding the after-school club altogether — things like requiring parents to sign permission slips for their children to join school clubs, ending all clubs at the school to avoid the situation entirely, or barring clubs from soliciting new members.

There was apparently only one board member, Adam Tucker, who defended the formation of the Gay-Straight Alliance, calling the proposed rules "a double standard" that targets kids joining the GSA specifically.

As Gawker's Rich Juzwiak points out, "requiring parental permission subverts part of the club’s point—to support LGBT students who face bigotry from their parents in addition to the willfully ignorant world at large."

The school board is expected to meet again in April to vote on new regulations for clubs.

Below, check out a Franklin County Buzz report featuring of some of the protesting that happened on both sides of the issue after the school board meeting concluded, including one super-special dude around the 6:08 mark who complains about 'sex clubs' falling "out of the realm of the education."

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