PFLAG and PFOX Spar Over New Recommendations for Schools On How to Handle Sexuality Issues
Posted on | March 27, 2006
The controversy over the guidelines drafted by The First Amendment Center for schools on how to deal with the homosexual issue has picked up steam with Agape Press reporting that the organization Parents and Friends of Lesbians And Gays, or PFLAG, and an antithetical group, Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays or PFOX, are now fighting over the guidelines. The guidelines, entitled "Public Schools and Sexual Orientation: A First Amendment Framework for Finding Common Ground", advises schools not to pick one side or the other. PFOX and other groups representing so-called "former homosexuals" have been involved in lawsuits against schools who deny them access. PFLAG acknowledges PFOX’s right to free speech, however it does not think that it deserves a "stamp of legitimacy". The Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network, or GLSEN, endorsed the guidelines.
On the surface it seems to be a clear-cut case of First Amendment right to free speech. And, grudgingly I have to admit that PFOX does have the right to free speech if it were simply a matter of censorship. But the problem I see here is that this is not a battle that is just one faction versus another. There is a third "faction" here and that is the students. Should they not be protected from individuals who want to come into the schools and tell them that they way they are is wrong, sinful, abnormal or any of the other terms ex-gays and other anti-gay advocates use to disparage homosexuality? When I was struggling with my own sexuality when I came into sentience about my homosexuality, the last thing I needed was negative messages like how having romantic attractions to other men makes me wrong or somehow defective. I would not wish the sexual identity disturbances I had in high school on anyone.
The bottom line is that a public school’s first duty is to the education and well-being of students while they are in and en route to/from school. Messages like those of PFLAG and other gay advocacy groups, thought some my object to, are supportive of all students where as those of PFOX and other "ex-gay" groups are not. The only reason this whole thing is an issue is because it deals with homosexuality. Because if PFOX really has the courage of its convictions in this matter, then it would also have to support racist groups that hold the belief that whites are the superior ethnicity and that all "colored" people are inferior humans if humans at all or misogynist groups that degrade woman.
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