Brevard’s LGBT activists are feeling more optimistic after a productive meeting with the Brevard County School Board. This is in sharp contrast to the previous school board meeting, where the hate group Liberty Counsel steamrolled over the chances of LGBT protections moving forward.
At odds is a proposal to add sexual orientation and gender identity to the school district’s nondiscrimination policy. Lexi Wright, Space Coast Pride executive director, says when she and other activists attended the board meeting in February, they expected to learn the protections would move forward as promised. Instead, they faced a flood of anti-gay comments from detractors, an unprofessional atmosphere and were told the proposal would move to workshop, which Wright says usually means the end of the discussion.
She says they entered the March 15 meeting with three goals: to set a date for the workshop, for the school board members to hear that the anti-gay comments they heard last time do not represent the majority of Brevard County and to get a public apology from board chair Andy Zigler, who Wright says failed to maintain order at the February meeting.
They mostly reached their goals. Wright says the workshop date is April 26, time and place to be determined.
“We had over twenty speakers, we filled up one third of the room with supporters and I believe [the board] heard loud and clear not only from the LGBT community but from our allies that the people who spoke at the last meeting do not represent Brevard County,” she says, adding that only two people spoke in opposition.
Wright says Zigler only apologized after Scott Wall-DeSousa, who she says has been “side by side” with her throughout this effort, reminded Zigler that he had not yet issued the promised mea culpa.
“Andy did apologize but limited his apology to not interrupting at least one of the [anti-gay] speakers,” Wright says. “Those were his words.”
As far as the plans for the upcoming workshop, it’s open to the public, but there will be no public comment.
“The purpose of the workshop is for the board to research and have more discussion about the topic, to get this done in a way that is acceptable to every member of the school board,” Wright says. “We are currently gathering statements and stories from people who have faced discrimination, and I’ve been given permission by a school board member to accept anonymous statements to submit so we can get our voices heard in the room.”
Wright says she’d like to receive statements from district employees, students, parents of students and employee family members.
Statements can be sent to Pres@SpaceCoastPride.org, to Space Coast Pride’s Facebook page or via SpaceCoastPride.org.
There is also another general school board meeting April 12, where Wright says they hope to fill the room with support.
