In suburban Virginia, the Fairfax County school board censured Stephen M. Hunt for using his authority as a board member to pressure principals into inviting ex-gays into the district’s classrooms.
Highlights in the media:
- DCist summarizes.
- 365gay.com, Feb. 3: School Board Official Tells Schools To Bring In Ex-Gay Speakers
- 365gay.com, Feb. 4: School Board Censures Official Over ‘Ex-Gays’ Letter. In his apology, Hunt “said he does not want the school’s curriculum to change but added that he is concerned that students who believe homosexuality is wrong cannot express their opinion without being considered discriminatory.”
- The Washington Times, Feb. 9: The Moonie-owned newspaper reports on the religious right’s battles against sex education in Fairfax County, Va., and nearby Montgomery County, Md. The Times quotes pro-exgay pundit Warren Throckmorton:
- Washington Blade, Feb. 11: School board censures fellow member for anti-gay letter: Two gay-rights groups, Equality Fairfax and HRC, are quoted opposing the inclusion of ex-gay speakers and literature in schools. PFOX executive director Regina Griggs defended Hunt without mentioning his misuse of authority: “The school board censured Mr. Hunt, but we support ex-gay speakers in our schools because Fairfax County public schools have a history of discriminating against the ex-gay community,” she said. “The ex-gay community deserves tolerance and equal treatment.” PFOX did not, unfortunately, defend tolerance and equal treatment for gay-affirming educators. Nor did PFOX address outright falsehoods, borrowed from discredited researcher Paul Cameron, in Hunt’s statements about gay male health. That task was left to teacher and local GLSEN co-chair Robert Rigby Jr.
- American Family Association/Concerned Women for America, Feb. 11: Robert Knight asserts that ex-gays have a right to enter the schools and recruit children. He seems to be arguing that any media appearance by a gay individual or group must be balanced with an ex-gay presence. The AgapePress article conceals exgay activist Stephen Bennett’s ties to the AFA, and neglects a simple matter of demographics: If exgays vastly outnumbered gays in America, then would every exgay media appearance need to be balanced by a gay appearance? (Hat tip: Dan Gonzales)
Warren Throckmorton specializes in the study of homosexuality as a psychology professor at Grove City College, a Christian school in Pennsylvania. He said he has received about two calls each week for several months from school officials and parents “concerned about how to teach the matter of homosexuality, without being an advocate for a particular perspective.”
“A lot of people who are not politically in this fight are trying to avoid being taken advantage of by what they consider to be a gay political-activist agenda,” Mr. Throckmorton said. “At the same time, they don’t want to put their heads in the sand and say, ‘We don’t want our kids to know nothing.’ They want a balanced view, and that’s where a lot of people I talk to are struggling, about where they can get that balanced view.”
Mr. Throckmorton wrote a 33-page critique of what he calls the “bias” of Montgomery County’s proposed curriculum.
David Fishback, chairman of the citizens advisory committee in Montgomery County that crafted the new curriculum, said Mr. Throckmorton thinks homosexuals are “sick and or … sinful.”
“That theology should not be dressed up as something other than what it is,” he said, adding that information about the rise of HIV and AIDS among homosexuals is used “to demonize people who are gay.”