A Lansing attorney says the Jackson Public Schools may be violating the state constitution by allowing students to form a homosexual organization.  Attorney David Kallman says the state constitution requires school districts to protect the health and welfare of their students, and he says a homosexual organization could be in conflict with that directive.

Kallman's clients, the American Family Association of Michigan and Jackson pastor Ira Combs, cited statistics from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention which list homosexual sex as the number one form of exposure among men who died from AIDS in 1998.  In addition, studies by Oxford University and the American Medical Association show that homosexual sex is proven to be three times deadlier than smoking.

Kallman says the scientific evidence is clear on the dangers of homosexuality.

"This is simply, I think, acknowledging fact," Kallman says.  "There is medical [and] scientific evidence that people [who] practice this lifestyle have severe health consequences.  And should the state promote...such activity to their students at their schools when there's known health risks?  I think this is pretty clear."

Kallman says no school would allow a group that encouraged smoking or taking drugs, so why would a school allow one that encourages other dangerous behavior?

"It's not saying this Gay-Straight Alliance [the student homosexual organization] can't have a group and meet," he says. "They obviously can...people have freedom of association...they can meet.  If they choose privately to make lifestyle choices that are going to harm themselves, that's up to them.  But that doesn't mean the state has to endorse it."

Kallman says he will research the issue and may file suit against Jackson Public Schools.