How does ex-gay propaganda make it into schools? Answer: coordination by bigots.

After my last post about ex-gay fliers being sent home with report cards in  the Montgomery County School District, you may have wondered how something like that can even happen.  Could it really have been a simple demonstration in 1^st Amendment rights or is there more to the story? Oh, there is more—much, much more.

The dots that connected to make this happen make me even more furious than when I initially heard the story.  Truth Wins Out exposes those dots: the effort is being coordinated by Peter Sprigg, who is on the school district’s advisory board and is a board member and spokesman for the Family Research Council, a parent organization to Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays.

Watch this video of Peter Sprigg on MSNBC, and then think about all of the teenagers being subjected to a calculated effort by this man and the organization he represents.

He wants to replace “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” with an absolute ban on gays serving in the military.  He thinks homosexual acts should be criminalized.  He thinks the Supreme Court made the wrong ruling in Lawrence v Texas; he thinks the country should have sodomy laws.

If that alone is not enough to make you sick, click that Truth Wins Out link above to see additional stances of Family Research Council (FRC) and Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays (PFOX).  Here are some:

• PFOX support groups portray LGBT family members as diseased, sexually irresponsible, depressed, and drug-addicted as a result of their sexual orientation
• PFOX discourages parents from seeking the help of mainstream mental-health professionals. PFOX support group members insist that only Christian conservative “counselors” can be trusted to conform to orthodox Christian Right stereotypes.
• FRC and PFOX oppose school antibullying programs unless they exclude LGBT students from protection

That is absolutely disturbing.

“Teach the Facts,” an organization of parents and supporters with the specific goal to promote tolerance and fact-based education in the public schools of Montgomery County posted the text of the flyer.

The flyer tries to stress that sexual orientation is a decision, that thousands of people per year “make the personal decision to leave a gay identity,” and that you aren’t born gay because “no medical test exists to determine if a person is homosexual.”  Oh, and that ex-gays are victims while “gays are affirmed for their decision to come out as gay.”

Is there a medical test for heterosexuality that I don’t know about? If it is required to have a medical test to validate your sexuality, we are all in trouble.

The flyer tries to validate its position by citing to the lack of psychological evidence about being “born gay.”  What about the overwhelming agreement by all the major psychological association that ex-gay therapy causes more harm than good?

The flyer closes with the argument that orientation is founded on just a few feelings, and that “important decisions should not be made on feelings alone.”

This entire situation is appalling.  Peter Sprigg needs to be ousted from his advisory position on the school board, and paraphernalia that tells of the dangers of ex-gay therapy, validated with legitimate support by all of the major medical associations, needs to be distributed.

Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, Family Research Council, FRC, Lawrence v Texas, Montgomery County School District, MSNBC, Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays, Peter Sprigg, PFOX, Teach the Facts, Truth Wins Out