Lesbian battles gag rule.

• Author: Capellaro, Catherine
• Position: Teacher sues Utah school district - On The Line - Brief Article

Spanish Forks, Utah

Wendy Weaver recently lost her coaching job. The reason: She's a lesbian.

Shortly after Weaver divorced her husband and moved in with Rachael Smith, the volleyball coach began making her annual phone calls to inform team members about summer volleyball camp. One student asked her if she was a lesbian.

"She said, `Can I ask you a question: Are you gay?' I said, `Yes, I am,"' says Weaver. "She said, `I just don't want to be around it."'

The student quit the team and told her parents.

In early July, the school board called Weaver in for a meeting. They fired her from coaching, and warned her that if she made any comments about her "homosexual orientation or lifestyle" to students, staff, or parents, she could lose her job as physical-education and psychology teacher.

"I asked the district to clarify," says Weaver. "`Are you saying that if I'm down at the ballpark and a parent sees me holding Rachael's hand and complains, I'm responsible for that?' And he said, `yes."'

In the small, mainly Mormon town of Spanish Forks, about eighty miles south of Salt Lake City, Weaver isn't sure who she can talk to. But she's sure her First Amendment rights are being violated. So, with the help of Utah's ACLU, she filed a federal lawsuit against the school district.

"Wendy faces very serious restraints on what she can say about her lifestyle and sexual orientation," says Pamela Martinson, one of Weaver's ACLU attorneys. "She is not asking for reinstatement as the volleyball coach. She wants the limits on her free speech resolved. Such a gag order would never be issued to another teacher in a similar situation who happens to be a heterosexual."

Carol Gnade, the executive director of the ACLU in Utah, says Weaver's case is an excellent test. "While we know that these things happen in a more covert fashion all over...