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Wayne Besen
PO Box 25491
Brooklyn, NY 11202
Parents & Friends of Ex-Gays (PFOX) has teamed up with Rev. Jerry Falwell's Liberty Counsel in an unholy alliance aimed at harassing and intimidating school districts into promoting an ex-gay agenda. The Christian Post reports that students will be asked to distribute literature and put up posters with the message that ex-gays exist, even though there is no evidence that they actually do.
"We also encourage them to start Gay to Straight Clubs, and ask that the ex-gay viewpoint be included in all diversity day presentations that discuss homosexuality," a statement from the law firm stated.
A few weeks ago, the Liberty Counsel bullied a school district in Wisconsin into canceling Diversity Day. The group, known for its vindictive and frivolous lawsuits, also tried to intimidate bloggers who posted parodies of ads run by the ex-gay group Exodus International. They backed down after the ACLU and other groups stood up to them.
As I warned in a recent column, the launch of this new campaign signals a strategy to infiltrate schools with harmful messages that can lead to, according to the APA, "anxiety, depression and self destructive behavior." Of course, allowing a Gay to Straight Club is patently absurd and a public health menace akin to schools sanctioning a cigarette smoking club.
"We are confident that this project will help root out intolerance that exists under the guise of tolerance and diversity. There is an ongoing battle over the hearts and minds of our youth. We have an obligation to protect them from the harmful message that people are 'born gay' and cannot choose to change," said Matthew Staver, President of Liberty Counsel.
Folks, the goal here is plain and simple: Any school district that does not buckle to this extortion, will be sued by the deep pockets of Liberty Counsel. What our community must do is fight back and sue the ex-gay ministries for their fraudulent claims, unlicensed practitioners, mental anguish and sexual abuse. If they want to bring this issue to the courts, I say, "Bring It On."
11 Comments:
Oh, I think you hit it right on the head here, Wayne. . .and these con artists are headed for a big fall. For every "Gay-to-Straight" club, there will have to be a "Straight-to-Gay" club, and that idea alone will make their fluid little green-pea-soup heads explode.
It seems to me that our own groups can come up with some rather helpful kits for school districts in meeting these bullying legal demands. . .including conditions for a speaker to be included in Diversity Day presentations. When they can muster up a LOCAL, not-on-the-payroll ex-gay, we can hustle up a nice ex-ex gay who lived that experience. And a nice slide presentation on their history of their straying leaders should make quite the cultural impact.
Seems to me that all a school district has to do is ask for some documented proof of their statistical claims, do some quick research on their "scientific" findings and debunked institutes and these jokers won't have much to stand on.
High school kids aren't stupid.
posted by Anonymous, at
4/14/2006 2:24 AM
I think the case that homosexuality itself causes "anxiety, depression and self destructive behavior" is probably at least as good as the case that trying to give up homosexuality has those effects.
The claim that allowing gay to straight clubs being the equivalent of allowing a cigarette smoking club, is desperate, and frankly weird.
Male homosexuality places one at greatly increased risk of potentially deadly diseases. Changing from a homosexual to a heterosexual lifestyle doesn't, so the truth is the reverse of what Besen suggests.
PS, I think Besen should stop using the word "folks" so much. It's creepy.
posted by Anonymous, at
4/14/2006 2:44 AM
Perhaps its time to produce a brochure about the mental illness dangers generated by membership in an extremist Right hate organization.
I'm sure research can easily point to the emotional and psychological dangers. And we can pass out such brochures outside each of their churches and their "christian" campuses.
posted by Anonymous, at
4/14/2006 11:27 AM
There are two separate issues here, it seems to me:
a) Whether anyone SHOULD or SHOULD WANT TO change from "gay" to "straight" and b) Whether it is in fact possible to do so.
I'm not going to address the first issue in these comments. What is surely worrying is that people will be fooled into thinking that it is POSSIBLE to change sexual orientation, when there seems to be no reputable, published, peer-reviewed clinical evidence of this at all.
Of course persons may choose to change from being sexually active to being celibate, but that is a completley different matter from changing DESIRE.
I risk simply repeating the excellent points made in Wayne's book, if I go on any more here!
I find it so objectionable that unscrupulous persons make a case in this way for selling snake oil.
If snake oil salesmen can come up with strong published peer reviewed clinical evidence that snake oil successfully treats a single medical condition, then maybe there's a case for letting them sell snake oil in public schools. If they can't come up with such evidence, let them keep silent, and keep them out the schools.
A glance at the 'testimonies' on the PFOX website will quickly apprise the intelligent reader of the quality, or lack of it, of such evidence.
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