The Struggle Over the Text: Compulsory Heterosexuality and Educational Policy

Abstract

Effectively questioning educational policy in purely secular terms is especially difficult in the Bible Belt. Educators outside the Bible Belt may be skeptical of such claims, but empirical research with regard to lesbian and gay students' experiences substantiate this contention. Although argumentation explicitly citing biblical texts in public school policy contexts violates the U.S. Constitution, freedoms of speech, press, and assembly still protect popular opinion grounded in biblically based interpretations of policy issues. As long as educational policy with regard to sexual diversity is formed only at state/local levels, the Bible Belt's cultural pragmatics necessitate understanding prominent biblical interpretative strategies on sexual diversity and competing secular theorizing about sexual ontology, metaphysics, ethics, and politics that fuel policy disputes. Lacking critical awareness of interpretive strategies, educational leaders may find themselves at the mercy of local popular prejudice, unable to prevent these controversies from eclipsing ethical concern for gay and lesbian students' and teachers' safety and well-being.