Having grown weary of picking on internet satirists, Liberty Counsel has paired with PFOX to kick off the “Change is Possible Campaign.” PFOX’s press release accuses “homosexual activists” of “using youth to advance an agenda.” The press release goes on to encourage youth to advance PFOX’s own agenda:
Students are asked to distribute literature and put up posters with the message that ex-gays exist, and then report to us the results of their efforts. 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. We provide the students with a Students’ Rights Brochure, sample graphics to use to create their own literature, health statistics, and a list of organizations that affirm a person’s decision to leave homosexuality.
Having grown weary myself of picking on Exodus, I decided to make a little infographic imagining what one of PFOX’s Gay to Straight clubs might be like. (click image to view full size)
Major thanks to Peterson for much of the writing you see there. In case you’re wondering where the “blame Satan” came from, I didn’t just make that up. Have a look here or here. If you like the logo I have created you can download a PDF of it which can be scaled to any size without a loss in resolution.
/snort Nice job Daniel (and Peter).I guess the only thing missing from view are the 2 or 3 adult, ever-straight outsiders who flew in for the meeting (airfare and accom. paid for by Focus). Perhaps they are outside the room, handing out fliers? Or trying to find the number of a local pizza store that will deliver?One thing is plainly obvious from the PFOX campaign though… this is about adults from PFOX themself wanting to intrude on the school system. Where, as example, are all cries of bullying, discrimination and violence from the “confused adolescents” who want to be exgay?Perhaps, as with PFOX in 1998, they instead need to be invented?
What a joke. I’m sure kids in schools are going around and saying “That’s so exgay” to denigrate stuff. Or pushing other kids in the hallway and yelling at them “Exgay!”.
This is so stunningly hypocritical I wonder if it isn’t a good thing. It so demonstrates the lie of people that say gays are the ones using gay children as political tools. Adult LBGTs care about children going through the same abuse they did. PFOX and “Liberty” Counsel can’t make the same claim.
The advice that Focus on the Anti-gay Family gave to the girlfriend of the “exgay” shows anti-gays have no empathy for same sex attracted people regardless of how much effort is made to please them by constricting lives.
There is nothing to be gained and much to lose by tricking same sex attracted children into needless years of denial that only delay the inevitable acceptance of reality for all but the most heavily socially pressured. And then PFOX, “Liberty” and Focus on the Anti-gay Family will still reject them for being forever tainted with same sex attraction.
Its a joke derived from evil.
Some of the stated claims of PFOX are not objectionable. I have no problem whatsoever with someone saying “I’ve decided to live celibate and to try and be as heterosexual as I can” during diversity day.
Indeed, if “former homosexuals have lost their jobs and been physically assaulted because they dared to tell others that people can and do overcome same-sex attractions”, then it would be appropriate to tell kids to respect those who are choosing to live the ex-gay lifestyle.
But, somehow I don’t think that’s really what PFOX and Liberty Counsel want.
PFOX, like most ex-gay groups, practices mote-and-beam theology. Their focus is not on their own life or their own struggles, but rather on the real or imagined misdeeds of others.
If you look at their encouragement, it boils down to start a club and get the “ex-gay viewpoint” into diversity day and in literature. Is there anything about providing support, help and care for those with unwanted same-sex attraction? Ummmm, no.
Just spread the viewpoint. And what is this viewpoint? Well a major clue is their emphasis on “health statistics”. I think we can safely say that these statistics are not about ex-gays. The whole purpose here is not to support ex-gays but rather to attack gay people.
If Matt Staver wants to tell kids that they should not bully others because they are ex-gay, I support that. If Staver wants to tell kids that in his opinion they are “not born gay and can choose to change”, I am OK with that (provided that he support any “facts” that are not stated as opinion).
But Matt isn’t really interested in telling kids that they CAN change. He wants to tell them that they SHOULD change. Their message is not pro-ex-gay but rather it is all anti-gay.
Incidentally, Matt, just who are those former homosexuals who have “lost their jobs and been physically assaulted because they dared to tell others that people can and do overcome same-sex attractions”.
I would think that if this ever happened anywhere at any time to anyone, we would have heard about it. But I haven’t. Ever. Didn’t the press release go out?
Or are you, ummm, creating a compilation scenario of possible circumstance based on potential results of hypothetical instances that could but have not yet occurred (in laymans terms: lying through your teeth)?
PFOX is waging a fact-free campaign.
— PFOX provides no facts — no names, no employers or specific reports of assaults — to substantiate its claims of discrimination.
— PFOX seeks to educate youths about risks of unprotected homosexual sex — but not the risks of unprotected heterosexual sex, and certainly not safer sex. Its expert sources historically have consisted of just a few ideologues such as John Diggs and Paul Cameron, not respected medical authorities.
— PFOX refuses to acknowledge the body of scientific evidence that indicates orientation is at least partly biological in origin.
— PFOX refuses to define “change.”
— PFOX fails to acknowledge what apolitical exgays have long acknowledged: that significant change in gender attraction is rare.
— PFOX fails to disclose the fate of most exgays: Lifelong asexuality or celibacy.
— The “facts” in its “educational” materials have been rejected as biased, inaccurate, impertinent and prejudicial by public school districts such as Montgomery County, Maryland, due to their reliance upon the above-referenced ideologues and religious-right political groups.
— PFOX already objects to neutral Gay-Straight Alliances, and would presumably object to “Straight to Gay Clubs” which would be a natural counterpart to PFOX’s “Gay to Straight Clubs.”
“Liberty” Counsel says “Former homosexuals have lost their jobs and been physically assaulted because they dared to tell others that people can and do overcome same-sex attractions”
So, its entirely possible, if not likely, these particular “former homosexuals”, if they exist, were discriminated against because of their past association with same sex attractions not because they are now “straight”. Presumably if they hadn’t brought up a past that supposedly no longer troubles them this would have never happened.
Presumably they may also have been fired and assaulted not because they were “exgay”, but because they were proselytizing others to become “exgay” and the messenger was punished because of the pushy and harmful message, not because of who he/she is.
Since when is spreading the message “I ‘changed'” and its sole purpose of implying “so should you.” an essential part of any “exgay” identity? Don’t anti-gay religious conservatives abhore people taking identities based on behavior? If its wrong to have a “gay” identity, isn’t it wrong to have a preaching “exgay” identity?
Telling others they should follow your “good” “exgay” example is not an essential behavior for anyone however same sex attracted people need to be free from that harmful pressure to be who someone ELSE wants.
If it happened, its always wrong to respond to harsh words with a physical assault, but this is admission by “Liberty” Counsel that “former homosexuals” aren’t being discriminated against for being former homosexuals, but for trying to control the lives of people other than themselves.
Rejecting the “exgay” message is not rejecting the messenger but if the messenger won’t seperate his/herself from spreading the intentionally implied hateful message that gays SHOULD change then a firing may be entirely justified.
Now, if they’ve got a case where someone was fired or assaulted because they are not or would not remain gay, then they’ve got a case of discrimination and they should be supporting anti-discrimniation laws on the basis of sexual orientation.
Posted by: Anonymous at April 13, 2006 06:08 PM
That was me, Randi.
Shouldn’t we see this laughable club as an attempt to sexualize children and recruit school children into (heterosexual) sexual behavior? After all, that’s the essence of the charge they level against the GSA’s.
This week the Rowan County North Carolina school board voted to “ban all sexually oriented clubs — gay, straight or otherwise”.
Of course, the local Gay Straight Alliance is not “sexually oriented”. Their focus is on providing common ground and fighting bullying.
However, under the terms defined by their vote, the Rowan County School Board would have to ban PFOX’s club because they define themselves solely by sexual acts. Unlike the GSA who does not push orientation identity, the Gay to Straight Club encourages identity announcement and identity politics. Unlike the GSA who does not focus on sexual activity, the purpose of GTS clubs is clearly to discuss sex acts.
But somehow I suspect that Rowan County would make an exception for anti-gay clubs – they aren’t “disruptive”, ya know.
https://www.charlotte.com/mld/observer/news/local/14330608.htm
Wow…do they intend to put all these high school students on the payroll all over the country so that they can actually get some members?
Ohhh…I wanna be the one to break THAT story in the media. “Ex-gays-for-pay” demands clubs.
As for the little Liberty Counsel nonsense over demanding ex-gay speakers, the schools should automatically require that these be representatives from a:) the LOCAL community; b:)no one who is on the payroll of any ex-gay ministry or associated organization, and c:)provide documented proof that their claims of “changing” thousands of gays each year are true.
Of course, savvy gays should also counter by demanding their student rights to present ex-evangelicals and ex-ex-gays who can present interesting information about the variety of methods used by these organizations in order to “change” people.
Finally, you’ll see the school board’s (and the fundies) heads explode when we welcome the Gay-to-Straight clubs with open arms. . .and announce the formation of the Straight-to-Gay clubs to offer an alternative point of view.
Oh yeah….by the way….when Liberty Counsel makes the claim that “Former homosexuals have lost their jobs and been physically assaulted because they dared to tell others that people can and do overcome same-sex attractions”. . .it seems to me that they are admitting the need for protections based on sexual orientation and identity.
So why is it that they fight so desperately against those measures?
I asked my gay high schooler what he thought about the idea of these clubs and his only response was, “gee, Mom, what a way to become even more popular!” IOW… he thought the whole idea was ridiculous, and that anybody who stepped forward at his high school to start such a club would be laughed out of school (Not to mention being unable to find a faculty advisor willing to sponsor such utter nonsense).
As an ex-ex-gay, I’d be most happy to go to schools and present the ex-gay point of view. I was one of them for years…