As children all across America head back to school, far too many will face yet another year of discrimination and harassment based on their sexual orientation or gender identity.

Every student deserves the opportunity to attend school and learn free of fear; however, this is not the reality for many LGBT young people in schools across the country. The ACLU's own work advocating for equal protection for LGBT students is replete with examples of those who have suffered discriminatory treatment at the very hands of those tasked with providing them with an education and ensuring their safety within schools.

In a comprehensive 2007 study of 6,209 middle and high school students spearheaded by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, nine out of 10 LGBT students reported that they had experienced harassment at their school in the past year. Additionally, three-fifths felt unsafe at school because of their sexual orientation and about a third reported that they had skipped a day of school in the past month because of feeling unsafe. Such toxic environments deny LGBT students their right to an equal education and contribute to unacceptably high rates of absenteeism, dropouts, adverse health consequences, and academic underachievement.

Despite all of this, the ironically named Focus on the Family is pushing back against even the most modest protections in schools for LGBT students and programs that promote tolerance. A Focus education "expert" stated that, "We feel more and more that activists are being deceptive in using anti-bullying rhetoric to introduce their viewpoints…"

While Focus on the Family might not like it, there are in fact students in schools all across this country who are LGBT and deserve the same chance of an education free of discrimination and harassment as any other student. There is nothing deceptive or agenda-pushing about it.

However, there is indeed a deceptive agenda at work, it just so happens to come from the same side as Focus on the Family. In March, the very deceptively named American College of Pediatricians, a fringe group of anti-LGBT doctors (including the now infamous rentboy.com client and professional homophobe George Rekers) not to be confused with 60,000-member American Academy of Pediatrics, sent a letter to every school district superintendent in the country containing gross misinformation about sexual orientation and gender identity and promoting unscientific and harmful "reparative therapies" that supposedly turn gay kids straight. As an interesting aside, Rekers, along with Focus on the Family founder James Dobson were two of the original founders of the anti-gay Family Research Council in 1981.

Among other outrageous claims from the American College of Pediatricians is that "most students (over 85 percent) with same-sex attractions will ultimately adopt a heterosexual orientation if not otherwise encouraged," and that "sexual reorientation therapy has proven effective for those with unwanted homosexual attractions."

The American Psychiatric Association, the American Psychological Association, the American Medical Association and other mainstream mental health and medical groups have denounced approaches like reparative therapy, stating that there is no evidence that they actually work and in fact may be deeply harmful to those who undergo it.

Indeed, these are just the types of twisted approaches that have caused needless harm and suffering for so many LGBT young people across the country. These students have a right to be themselves.

Thankfully, there is legislation pending in Congress to protect LGBT students from discrimination and harassment in public schools throughout the country — the Student Non-Discrimination Act. Please join with the ACLU in urging your representatives and senators to support this long-overdue legislation. Let it be known that Focus on the Family does not speak for you or your family.

Marsha Banks is the founder of Amiracle4sure, a ministry that mentors current and former offenders. She recently completed her Master's Degree in Social Services and works as a Family Involvement Specialist for the Pennsylvania System of Care Partnership. With the ACLU of Pennsylvania, Marsha was also involved in a coalition that advocated for the passage of Pennsylvania's Healthy Birth for Incarcerated Women Act.

On Monday, Act 45, the Pennsylvania law that bans the practice of shackling pregnant inmates during labor, went into effect. This shackling ban is a godsend. It is long overdue, and I am so grateful that supporters had not given up the fight for this cause.

I acknowledge that in the past I have made many mistakes, but never would you hear me say that bringing a child into this world was a "mistake." I am a proud mother of eight beautiful children, and while I can recall many proud moments of giving birth to all of my children, there is one delivery that shakes my spirit every time I think about it.

I have a handsome 16-year-old at home, but some days when I look at him, I just want to cry. At times I can't help but to think back to where my life was heading just 16 years ago. I was struggling with a substance abuse problem and I was trying to find my way out of a very abusive marriage. The end of this tragic period of my life was soon to come, or so I thought. It was a cold winter in January when I had come to what we term in recovery as "a bottom." I was facing criminal charges for neglect and I was being held in custody at Montgomery County Prison. At that time, I was about four months pregnant with my seventh child.

I stayed in the county facility for several months before sentencing. I was hoping to leave soon, but instead was sentenced to serve time at Muncy State Correctional Institute. According to corrections policy, I was not permitted to serve my state time until after having my baby. I had five long months to go in a county facility that I didn't feel was suitable for living, let alone giving birth to a child. Prenatal appointments were nightmares, and the diet plans were unacceptable (noodles and chips, oh, and lots of chocolate). The regular visits to the medical clinic were not welcomed, nor were the unexpected premature labor experiences along the way.

I dreaded having to leave the facility to go to hospital, but the stress and pressure of being in the county facility caused me to enter into premature labor several times. I was shackled from head to toe every time I left the county facility for court and hospital visits. The many pleas for loosening the belt on my waist or the chains on my ankles fell on deaf ears. "It's corrections policy," they would say. I was pregnant; where did they think I was I going to go? My final visit to the hospital came on an early day in May, the day when I knew this was it, this soon-to-be-proud mother wasn't too eager to go to the hospital at all.

With shackled ankles, the belt strap in place and a wrist cuff on the pole of the gurney, they transported me to Lancaster County General Hospital. I spent hours in labor with my ankle cuffed to the end of the bed post. There was one correctional officer outside of my door and another at my bedside. On that day, the 18th of May, I gave birth to a very handsome and healthy baby boy, whom I named Christian. He is my miracle child; when I look at him in the morning and at night I just smile. However, the memory of how he came into this world stays fresh in my mind.

Years have passed and times have changed; and still seeing this change to the shackling policy come about has brought tears to my eyes. This is indeed an answer to my prayers.

For the mothers who share in this pain, I applaud you. For those advocates and supporters who did not give up, congratulations, job well done.

Only 10 states have laws that restrict the use of restraints on women prisoners during labor and delivery. To learn more about how your state treats pregnant women in prison, see our map on state standards for pregnancy-related heath care in prison.

The ACLU took to the airwaves this week to advance its advocacy against the implementation of Assault Intervention Devices — invisible microwave beam weapons originally developed by the military — as a way of subduing inmates at the Los Angeles County Jail by focusing a microwave beam on them to make them feel intolerable heat.

Margaret Winter, associate director of the ACLU National Prison Project, told host Sonali Kolhatkar on the show "Uprising" on KPFK-FM in Los Angeles yesterday that because we don't have a full understanding of just how dangerous this weapon can be, subjecting inmates to this technology puts their lives at risk — a clear violationof the Eighth Amendment and the due process clause of the U.S. Constitution.

The military incarnation of the device was briefly fielded in Afghanistan this past June before being withdrawn in July without ever being used. While the device was being tested by the Air Force, a miscalibration of the device's power settings caused five airmen in its path to suffer lasting burns, including one whose injuries were so severe that he was airlifted to an off-base burn treatment center.

This morning, on the KPFK program "Sojourner Truth with Margaret Prescod," Peter Eliasberg, managing attorney with the ACLU of Southern California, said, "the fact that this weapon was never used by the military should be red flag enough for people to be angry and outraged and to contact the Board of Supervisors and say this is an experiment that shouldn't be allowed to go forward."

We are all familiar with how the death penalty works. A crime (usually murder) is committed. It's investigated by law enforcement. A suspect is arrested, charged with the crime, and goes to trial. The government shows the judge or jury the evidence against the accused. The accused can defend against the accusations. The jury delivers a verdict. If it's a guilty verdict, the defendant might be sentenced to death.

The process, from arrest to sentencing, is the Fifth Amendment in action, the part that states: "no person…shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law."

But earlier this year, the Obama administration asserted it has the authority to carry out "targeted killings" of U.S. citizens outside armed conflict zones. In February, then-Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair told the House Intelligence Committee that the U.S. was authorized to take “direct action” against suspected terrorists and that “if we think that direct action will involve killing an American, we get specific permission to do that.”

It was reported widely, in fact, that the government keeps secret "kill lists," which function as standing authorizations to use lethal force against anyone on the list, including American citizens.

Today, the ACLU and Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) filed a lawsuit challenging the government's asserted authority to carry out targeted killings of U.S. citizens outside armed conflict zones.

Now, no one disputes that the United States is at war. But wars are waged in specific geographic areas. Currently, the U.S. is at war in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The U.S. is not at war in Somalia. Yet that is where a missile strike killed Ruben Shumpert, a U.S. citizen from Seattle.

The U.S. is also not at war in Yemen. Yet that is where Anwar al-Aulaqi, a U.S. citizen, is purportedly in hiding, and where the government has attempted to assassinate him as many as a dozen times using armed drones.

The Constitution protects all Americans' right to life, whether they're living at home or abroad. If the government thinks you should be dead, it should at least tell you why. The fact that the standard that puts Americans on the "kill list" is a secret is itself unconstitutional. As our complaint states, "U.S. citizens have a right to know what conduct may subject them to execution at the hands of their own government. Due process requires, at a minimum, that citizens be put on notice of what may cause them to be put to death by the state."

No one would dispute either that the United States has the right to protect and defend itself against its enemies. But outside of zones of armed conflict, both the Constitution and international law prohibit targeted killing except as a last resort to protect against concrete, specific, and imminent threats of death or serious physical injury. The fact that many on the "kill list" have been on the list for months makes clear that the administration’s targeted killing program is broader than the law permits.

The government isn't perfect, and this targeted killing program leaves too much room for error. The American government detained almost 800 men at Guantánamo as terrorists, only to release 600 of them after it was found that there was insufficient evidence to hold them. In other words, it made mistakes. Lots of them. And the consequences are far more serious when the end result is death.

A few weeks ago, ACLU deputy legal director Jameel Jaffer was on Democracy Now talking about the targeted killing program. He said: "A lot of us agree that the last administration's argument for worldwide detention authority, the authority to detain people without charge or trial, was extreme and unlawful. This administration is claiming worldwide execution authority." It's death without due process, far from any battlefield, which is alarming, dangerous, and unconstitutional.