Wendy Chandler (Weaver), right, with partner Rachel Smith

The group which has been unsuccessfully trying to oust Spanish Fork teacher Wendy Chandler (Weaver) since 1997 had another day in court. Matthew Hilton, an attorney for Citizens of the Nebo School District for Moral and Legal Values, pleaded his case before the Utah Supreme Court on October 3.

Among other claims, Hilton argues that Chandler has made “inappropriate” comments about the LDS Church in the classroom and that her sexual orientation is disruptive to school activities. He also argues that a student’s right were violated because Chandler has access to the women’s locker room. Seven of Hilton’s original claims against Chandler have already been thrown out by a lower court.

Chandler, who has already gone through the ordeal of being excommunicated from the LDS Church and being accused by her own student of being “unfit” to teach because she is a lesbian, lives in Spanish Fork where she and her partner are raising a family of seven children.

Chandler’s partner Rachel Smith says that the lawsuit is “motivated by a small segment of individuals who would like to dictate how the rest of us live our lives.” ACLU Utah attorney Stephen Clark says that Chandler is being sued because she “had the courage to speak out.”

In 2000, Affirmation: Gay and Lesbian Mormons awarded a paper which discusses the text of the original lawsuit against Chandler. Utah Valley State College professor Karin Anderson wrote in 2000 that the text of the lawsuit is “an artifact of contemporary Mormon culture, an example of one culture’s fears of its own projected likeness.”