Georgia Gov. Perdue signed law requiring parental opt-out disclosure for school clubs, targeting Gay-Straight Alliances

On May 5, 2006, Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue signed SB 413 into law, an omnibus amendment to the state's compulsory school attendance statute sponsored in the legislature by state Sen. Nancy Schaefer (R-Turnerville) as a Committee of Conference Substitute. Buried within the larger attendance bill, Section 4 added new Code Section 20-2-705, requiring every local board of education to publish the name, stated purpose, and faculty advisor of each school club or organization in the student code of conduct distributed at the start of each school year, and to provide parents and guardians a form on which they can decline permission for their child to participate in any named club.

The provision arrived months after students at White County High School, in rural north Georgia, organized PRIDE (Peers Rising In Diversity Education), a Gay-Straight Alliance-type club founded by an out lesbian student, Kerry Pacer, after school officials initially resisted approving it. NPR/Georgia Public Broadcasting reporting from March 2006 described the bill as targeted at that club and others like it, quoting opponents who called the measure aimed at gay-straight alliance groups. Sen. Schaefer denied any targeting intent, framing the requirement as a parental-notice measure. Although the statute's text applies neutrally to all school clubs, its practical effect is to disclose a student's membership in an LGBTQ-supportive club to their parent or guardian and to let that parent block continued participation — a state-mandated disclosure-and-veto mechanism that functions, in application, to expose and restrict gay-identifying students' chosen associations.