Montgomery County’s school board may have finally had enough of Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays (PFOX) deeply homophobic shenanigans. News reports say that the Board may re-examine its policy of handing out fliers of all non-profit organization after PFOX exploited the policy by slipping 8,000 hate fliers into student packets.
The result might be that the school system no longer will allow groups to send materials home with students.
“For many students it was a very hurtful message,” Board member Philip Kauffman (At large) said of PFOX’s flier.
Well, that is the aim of PFOX — to deeply wound LGBT students and bully them into feeling so terrible about themselves that they feel they must “pray away the gay” to be accepted by society. Truth Wins Out will be suing PFOX in the very near future for defamation.
Last week, Truth Wins Out sent an open letter to Montgomery School Superintendent Joshua Starr strongly urging him to stop disseminating “ex-gay” fliers. TWO strongly believes that the School District is not obligated to hand out the fliers because the individuals that make up the organization constitute a clear and present danger to the mental health and well-being of students.
The health of students should always come first and protecting teenagers from harm is the primary duty of any school district. PFOX’s President, Greg Quinlan refers to gays as “flaming faggots” and its board member, Peter Sprigg, believes in jailing gays and once said they should be “exported” from America.
Fraudulence screams off the pages of the PFOX website. In one place they say that teenage sexuality is “fluid” and that no teen should accept the label of being “gay,” because they they can be “trapped in bad things” for life. If that’s the case, then why is an “ex-gay” band going after teens whose sexuality allegedly is too “fluid” for those teens even to declare themselves gay in the first place? To re-phrase that, why is PFOX, an “ex-gay” organization, going after teens if it says teens can not really say they are gay? Also, does PFOX ever put out material saying that heterosexual teens should never declare their heterosexuality because sexuality in teens is too “fluid”? PFOX is an anti-gay hate group that preys on gay human beings made insecure in their sexuality by societal anti-gay bigotry. PFOX itself is promoting anti-gay bigotry, by telling teens their sexuality is too “fluid” for them to say they are gay, while making no criticisms of heterosexual teens who say they are heterosexual.
Great points Scott.
PFOX is so full of it. I was attracted to boys *and men* before I even knew what sex was or that adults had pubic hair. My orientation is and was about as ‘fluid’ as the ice rocks in the rings of Saturn.
Yes, Scott, you’re absolutely right. PFOX’s objective is crystal clear: to imbue gay teenagers with negative and destructive attitudes to their sexuality and to encourage them to seek a fraudulent “therapy” to change it. This, of course, is straightforward abuse, and an analogous ploy directed at straight teenagers would be universally recognized as such.
Well done to Wayne and Evan for persevering with this case. PFOX promote prejudice and normalize bullying of LGBT people with their inflammatory rhetoric.
Keep up the good work!
Scott — because they are despicable liars.
If they can’t hand out fliers and corrupt our youths’ minds, how can they keep the $$$ flowing into their coffers? I mean, a person can’t possibly make a career out of promoting/celebrating homophobia without $$$!!!
I’m a member of the other P org. and man we really can’t stand these um, well people!
Go get’m Wayne. And Thanks!
PFOX is trying to pretend that their message is benign. One of their members recently asserted on a parent listserve that PFOX “is not in the business of ‘curing’ homosexuals.” This is a falsehood. The flyer urges students to go to the PFOX website, where a couple of clicks leads to explicit assertions that people can change their orientation through therapies. See, for example, http://pfox.org/therapist_parents.html and http://pfox.org/Facts_on_full_sheet_Apr_1.pdf
Such therapies are condemned by every mainstream American medical and mental health professional organization, including the American Medical Association. http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/about-ama/our-people/member-groups-sections/glbt-advisory-committee/ama-policy-regarding-sexual-orientation.page (H-160.991 Health Care Needs of the Homosexual Population) and http://www.apa.org/pi/lgbt/resources/just-the-facts.pdf (Just the Facts About Sexual Orientation and Youth: A Primer for Principals, Educators, and School Personnel, developed by the American Psychological Association and endorsed by 13 other organizations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American School Counselors Association, and the National Association of School Psychologists).
The PFOX canards, particularly if unrebutted by MCPS, contribute to misconceptions about sexual orientation that can lead to bullying or lead students to seeking therapies that are dangerous to their health. While material rebutting these falsehoods is available in the Guidance Offices, there is no general distribution by MCPS of the actual facts.
We are working on that here in Montgomery County, and expect to get good results. The new superintendent is terrific and the Board of Education members are supportive.
David Fishback, Advocacy Chair
Metro DC PFLAG
Its not about praying away being gay, its about recognising that not everyone is gay because its natural and for those that are misidentifying themselves as being gay, how is the gay movement looking after these people? You so want to rubbish PFox but when you go to school all that you are told is you have a right to be gay. What about having a right not to be gay if you’re actually just confused, lonely, pressured, abused or a number of other reasons that have nothing to do with being gay naturally. But of course you’ll probably say I am homophobic and discriminating…..how predictable and easy so as to not look at a real problem that exists out there.
How can anyone not see that the real problem is that being gay is even seen as a problem in the first place? What you mention–confusion, pressure, and abuse–is a byproduct of this problem, which groups like PFOX keep perpetuating. Confusing the youth by feeding them lies. Pressuring them through a baseless stigma (being gay is wrong being that stigma), through fearmongering, through blaming the victim, as groups like PFOX love doing. Abuse through either directly or indirectly promoting violence against not just GLBT youth, but youth that they perceive as such. But do keep trying to frame homosexuality as the problem, even though what you defend is the only reason that is even seen as a problem. Discriminating does not even begin to describe such a flawed tactic. Unscrupulous, surreptitious, duplicitous, hateful, and sanctimonious would be far closer to the mark.
The “gay movement” (I’m still waiting for my membership card) is looking after these people by saying it’s ok to be WHATEVER you are – gay, straight, questioning, is ALL acceptable and your right. That’s a very different message than the anti-gay stance that gay is wrong, and ONLY straight is right. Don’t over simplify by listing only half of our message. We encourage personal reflection and embrace the decision an individual reaches, we don’t discourage or intimidate anyone to reach the decision WE want. That’s the difference.
David Fishback, thanks for the informed local perspective and for your advocacy.
Saryaigne says: “when you go to school all that you are told is you have a right to be gay. What about having a right not to be gay if you’re actually just confused, lonely, pressured, abused or a number of other reasons that have nothing to do with being gay naturally.”
What a load of crap from a dishonest, homophobic person that obviously has an agenda — at the expense of LGBT students. Hey — the kids are not “confused” about who they are — but you certainly are. Why is your kind so hellbent on taking psychologically healthy LGBT teenagers and screwing them up as much as you are messed up? Why are you projecting your own personal bigotries and hang-ups and neuroses and foisting them on to innocent LGBT youth?
Second, is there really a problem of gay kids coming out at school and being told that they are OK? Because to any honest, thinking person with a set of eyes and ears and a brain, it is rather clear that LGBT students are not getting enough positive reinforcement. Have you not noticed the epidemic of bullying and the tragic suicides — or maybe you actually like it when LGBT teens harm themselves. Maybe you get off on it and you pat yourself on the back because you think the destruction of young gay lives makes God happy. How many dead bodies must we see before your ilk stops peddling lies such as, “when you go to school all that you are told is you have a right to be gay.”
Really? Which schools? That’s not what we are hearing from the LGBT youth who are often scared for their lives when they enter their middle school and high school campuses.
PFOX is a hate group plain and simple. Saryaigne, you are a pathetic and disgraceful enabler of hate. Have you no shame?
Thank you Wayne!
[...] Wins Out (TWO), a high-profile organization fighting anti-gay religious extremism, has covered the Montgomery school fliers, and even filed a lawsuit recently against PFOX and Greg Quinlan for [...]