The Atlanta Eagle is ready to party.
In April, the gay bar in Midtown celebrates its 25th anniversary with a barbecue, balloon drop and giveaways, as well as the annual Leather Pride event.
The entire month of April is also booked with numerous other parties each weekend, including the celebration of Richard Ramey and Robby Kelley owning the bar for 15 years and MondoHomo’s popular WigOut party and fundraiser.
Reuben Lack, the Alpharetta High School student suing his school over his forced removal from his student council position after introducing an LGBT-friendly prom resolution, went before a federal judge today in the first hearing seeking to have him reinstated as council president.
Lack gave testimony before United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia Judge Richard Story and was cross examined by the defense team for Fulton County Public Schools, Lack's attorney, James Radford, said today by phone. The defense also submitted some five affidavits from students and faculty of Alpharetta High School but did not call any witnesses.
“The judge is taking the case very seriously," Radford said. "He clearly understands the First Amendment implications of the case.”
An Alpharetta High School student alleges in a recently filed lawsuit that he was forcefully removed from his student council position after advocating a change in the school’s “Prom King and Queen” tradition to be more inclusive of LGBT couples.
Reuben Lack, 18, says that two Alpharetta High School faculty advisors told him that he was being removed as the school’s student body president for “pushing personal projects.” In the complaint, filed March 20 in the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of Georgia, Lack contends he was removed over his “exercise of rights protected by the First Amendment.”
Fulton County Public Schools, which includes Alpharetta High, disputes the claim, arguing that the gay-inclusive prom policy is not why Lack was removed from office.
Reuben Lack made national headlines last week when news broke that he was suing his school, Alpharetta High School, over his forced removal as the school's student body president. Lack alleged the change came after he introduced a resolution designed to make the school's prom more gay-inclusive.
Samantha Evans, executive director of communications for Fulton County Public Schools, disputed Lack’s claims in an interview today.
“The bottom line is that this allegation that the student is making is not true. This is not a district that would support any type of prejudice or bias,” Evans said today by phone.
The attorney for the Alpharetta teen who's suing his high school over his removal from his position as the school's student body president says that his client's name is being “dragged through the mud” and accuses some students of Alpharetta High School of bullying his client on social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook.
In a statement released over the weekend, James Radford says that he and his client, Reuben Lack, may have been overwhelmed by the attention that Lack's lawsuit has generated. Lack alleges in his lawsuit that he was kicked off the council after he proposed making the school's prom gay inclusive.
The story may have gotten too big, too fast, and I believe the students, faculty, and administration at Alpharetta High School have found themselves overwhelmed. I know Reuben and his family have felt overwhelmed.
Reuben Lack is not your ordinary high school senior. “He's not your popular kid. He's not a football player or a cheerleader. He's your policy kid,” Reuben's father, Nathaniel Lack says of his son.
“The only time he's ever been in trouble at school was because he was on his cellphone during class,” his father says. “He was checking Supreme Court rulings.”
Lack, 18, is the captain of the Alpharetta High School debate team and until Feb. 8, he was also the school's Student Body President. But after introducing an LGBT-friendly resolution during a student council meeting, Lack was told by school officials that he was being removed from his position for “pushing personal projects.” The resolution would make the school's prom more inclusive to gay and lesbian students.
An Alpharetta High School student alleges in a lawsuit that he was forcefully removed from his student council position after advocating a change in the school's “Prom King and Queen” tradition to be more inclusive of LGBT couples.
According to the complaint, filed Tuesday in the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of Georgia Atlanta District, Reuben Lack, who is straight, says that two Alpharetta High School faculty advisors told him that he was being removed as the school's Student Body President for “pushing personal projects.”
Lack alleges that he was removed over his “exercise of rights protected by the First Amendment.”
At a Fulton Magistrate Court hearing today, Inman Park United Methodist Church agreed to allow YouthPride stay in its space for now as a way to settle the disagreements between the two parties "peacefully," according to the church's attorney.
The consent order was reached before today's hearing but the specifics of the agreement won't be available until tomorrow after it is signed by a judge, said Peter Morgan, attorney representing Inman Park UMC.
"We came to an agreement … to settle things peacefully and to the benefit of both parties," Morgan said following the hearing.
YouthPride Executive Director Terence McPhaul is no stranger to lawsuits. Since becoming executive director of YouthPride in June 2009, he has personally filed three lawsuits handled in federal court — including one showing that he began searching for other jobs within months of taking the helm of the youth group.
Like McPhaul’s recent lawsuit in Fulton County against a car dealership, the federal lawsuits are all filed “pro se,” or with McPhaul representing himself instead of having an attorney. The lawsuits are filed on behalf of McPhaul as an individual, not as a representative of YouthPride. One remains pending.
Court records show McPhaul has filed six lawsuits handled by the federal court system since 1994, all representing himself without an attorney. Defendants include at least four of his previous employers, including three prominent Atlanta nonprofits: AID Atlanta, National AIDS Education & Services for Minorities, and St. Joseph’s Mercy Care.
YouthPride Executive Director Terence McPhaul filed a lawsuit for nearly $1 million against an Atlanta Mercedes-Benz dealership on Feb. 28 saying its technicians never fixed a continuous oil leak in his vehicle.
McPhaul is suing the car dealership as an individual, not on behalf of the LGBT youth group.
McPhaul and YouthPride also recently countersued Inman Park UMC after the church, the agency's landlord, alleges YouthPride, an organization serving gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and queer youth agest 13-24 in metro Atlanta, has not paid more than $40,000 in rent.
McPhaul filed his lawsuit on Feb. 28 against Mercedes-Benz dealership RBM North of Atlanta “pro se” — meaning he is representing himself — for nearly $1 million because he claims employees at the Atlanta dealership called him “paranoid” for his ongoing complaints of an oil leak.