From California comes a story of Intolerance Gone Wild, or something.

In 2002, when Rebekah Rice was a high school freshman, some classmates were harassing her (or “razzing” her, as the Associated Press chose to tell it) about her Mormon upbringing with questions such as “Do you have 10 moms?”

Rice’s comeback: “That’s so gay.”

Someone ended up in the principal’s office at Santa Rosa’s Maria Carillo High School and it wasn’t the religion bashers. Rice received a warning and a notation in her file for using a phrase she took to mean as “that’s so stupid.”

Enter her parents. Who sue, of course, but not because their daughter was harassed over her religion and the school ignored it, but because school officials violated their daughter’s First Amendment rights when they disciplined her for uttering a phrase “which enjoys widespread currency in youth culture,” according to court documents.

(Presumably, the other girls would have been disciplined if they had asked, “Do you have 10 gay moms?”)

It’s doubtful that Rice, now 18, was pining to be the poster child in the fight for the right to say, “That’s so gay.” Thanks, mom and dad. She testified in court in February and the judge will issue a ruling in April. That’s something to remember about lawsuits. They take a long time in real life.

School officials say they banned the phrase “that’s so gay” after two students were paid to beat up a gay student the year before.

Apparently well-intended, but ridiculous. Just like New York’s symbolic resolution banning of the n-word. Symbolizing what? Utter futility?

How is the phrase “That’s so gay” worse than “Do you have 10 moms?” Does a Mormon student have to be beaten up before it’s taken seriously?

“The district has a statutory duty to protect gay students from harassment,” making the ban of “that’s so gay” a reasonable regulation, the district’s lawyers argue.

Actually, the district has a duty to protect all students from harassment. Which, of course, it can’t. But it can offer lessons in tolerance, rather than trying to ban words. Kids of all ages tend to be equal-opportunity harassers. Gay students don’t like to hear “That’s so gay” to describe something dumb, just as the overweight kids don’t like to hear all the insults hurled at them. Same with the geeks, the freaks, the students of Middle Eastern descent, kids of color, and, say, Mormons.

Just a small plea for adults to focus on the big picture, the one that includes everybody, equally.