Loudoun Connection
February 17, 2005
By Andrea Zentz
Protests over a student-written high school play exploring homosexuality have subsided, after triggering a barrage of e-mails, letters and phone calls protesting the work.
The uproar had students championing their first amendment rights while some adults decried what they perceived as the promotion of a deviant sexual lifestyle.
The School Board’s Legislative/Policy Committee was scheduled to meet Wednesday night to begin its review of the issue. Chairman Mark Nuzzaco (Catoctin) said the panel will need to talk to a lawyer. “We’ll eventually craft some sort of proposal that we’ll consider as a committee, then “¦ at some point present it to the public for further comment.”
Stone Bridge High School’s “Postcards from Paradise” collection of one-act plays premiered a week ago. The play “Offsides” by Sabrina Audrey Jess featured a scene in which two male students gave the appearance of kissing one another. “I am not trying to promote any sort of sexual lifestyle. I just want to be heard,” she told the School Board at its Feb. 8 meeting.
School Board member Bob Ohneiser (Broad Run) said the play violated current policy and that it is the board’s job to censor the students’ work when necessary. “We have a policy we will not allow anything to appeal to prurient interests,” he said.