Has the Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network Sold Out?

Posted on | March 20, 2006

While assembling links for an "In Brief", I ran across one on PageOneQ the lead to the blog "Proceed At Your Own Risk" about how the Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network, which bills itself as "ensuring safe schools for all lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender students", is allowing itself to be used as a tool of the ex-gay movement. At issue is the group’s endorsement of "guidelines", written by The First Amendment Center, designed to assist public schools in the creation of policies dealing with homosexuality. They were created to prevent things like an out of court settlement that the Montgomery County School Board reached to avoid a lawsuit brought by the group Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays, or PFOX, with the assistance of the religious right-wing law firm the Liberty Council over a controversial, but voluntary, sex-ed program that included discussing homosexuality.

Recently ex-gay groups have begun to target gay teens and those suffering from sexual identity disturbances. We have seen this when "Zach", quotes used because I am not sure if that was his real name or not, and DJ Butler, both homosexual teenagers, were forced by their patents to participate in the Love in Action program that promised to cure their non-existent disorder. We have events like the so-called "Day of Truth" supported by the Alliance Defense Fund, another religious right-wing legal group, to counter the "Day of Silence" where homosexual and supporting high school students remain silent through an entire day to symbolize the silence of gay teens.

The author of "Proceed At Your Own Risk" makes a very valid point that what these ex-gay groups do amounts to child abuse. In making his case, he lays out official definitions of child abuse, above and beyond the assumed physical abused, which are the following:

Verbally abusing a child
Breaking down the self-confidence of a child
Manipulating a child
Not listening to a child
Neglecting the emotional needs of a child
Neglecting a child’s medical needs
Neglecting a child’s educational needs

One could definitely argue that ex-gays are abusive to teens based on those criteria. I definitely agree that the ex-gays targeting of teens is a form of child abuse. I could trot out statistics on gay teen suicide rates and other such things that my conservative critics would call "playing the victim card" but I am not going to do that. We all went through our teen years and we know the hell that they can be. Throwing their innate homosexuality into the mix just makes it that much worse. And then we trot in a group of people who want to tell them that they are sick, perverted, or mentally disordered. How do you think that child is going to feel then? Or worse yet they get put into programs that are ethically questionable at best to cure them as what was done to "Zach" and DJ.

I find GLSEN’s action a little puzzling myself. According to the group’s website they "envision a future in which every child learns to respect all people, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity/expression" but yet endorsing something advocated by the ex-gay movement is antithetical to that given the ex-gay movement’s lack of respect for gay people given their cozy relationship with groups like Focus on the Family and the American Family Association who exist solely for the purpose to continue institutionalized discrimination against transgender and non-heterosexual individuals.

Back in December I wrote about an advertising campaign by ex-gay groups attacking hate crime laws that include sexual orientation as a protected characteristics alongside race, gender, and nationality. The group, in an openly deceptive advertising campaign, stated that "Hate crime laws say we were more valuable as homosexuals than we are now as former homosexuals". Yet there are sites you can find that are nothing but laundry lists victims of attacks based solely on their sexuality, like Matthew Shepard, perceived sexuality, like soldier Barry Winchell, or status as a transgendered individual, like Gwen Araujo.

I realize that GLSEN may have been backed into a corner on this one given the nature of the First Amendment and that free speech does mean all viewpoints that are expressed are going to be ones we individually like. With groups like the AFA, Exodus International, and PFOX with their tame lawyers at the Liberty Council always on hand their homophobic views are going to be heard whether we like it or not. However the Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network does not have to lend its endorsement to these guidelines either. Allowing for free speech such as that of PFOX does not equate to accepting it. Endorsing something like these guidelines GLSEN endorses groups like PFOX. Additionally, by lending its name to these guidelines, GLSEN has put its stamp of approval on individuals who are actively engaging in child abuse.

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