PFOX’s attempt to make the Walt Disney Company include ex-gays in its anti-discrimination policy is not about sexual orientation – it is about ideology.
If it were about sexual orientation, PFOX would have to concede that ex-gays are already protected. Are ex-gays same-sex attracted? Then they are homosexual, and are therefore protected. Have they overcome same-sex attractions to become opposite-sex attracted? Then they are heterosexual, and are therefore protected. Do they now have heterosexual relationships? Marriages? Then they have the same rights as every other person in a heterosexual relationship or marriage. Do they have no sexual relationships at all? Then they have the same rights as every other celibate person.
What unique attraction or relationship is the ex-gay trying to protect by insisting he be included in a sexual orientation policy?
The fiercely anti-gay PFOX complains thus:
Disney’s exclusion of ex-gays from its sexual orientation policy and programs reinforces the second-class status of ex-gays, and contributes to the negative perceptions and discrimination against former homosexuals. Disney’s exclusion also disregards diversity and the basic human right to dignity and self-determination. Adding ex-gays to Disney’s sexual orientation policy and programs, which already include gays and bisexuals, will increase diversity, assure equality in the workplace, and be inexpensive for the Company to implement.
PFOX claims that ex-gays are victims of intolerance, discrimination, unfair treatment and hostility. It even claims to have “documented numerous incidents of intolerance against the ex-gay community.” But it is blind at best, disingenuous at worst to say that hostility or intolerance towards ex-gays is due to their sexual orientation. It is about ideology. In the public square, the ex-gay message is rarely heard without accompanying slander of gays and their relationships. If indeed this is a sexual orientation, it is a tragedy – not to mention an anomaly – that it is an orientation defined overwhelmingly by hatred of and opposition to another sexual orientation.
As a gay man, I am oriented primarily towards other men. My sexuality has nothing to do with opposing other people’s sexuality. I do not need to destroy heterosexuality to be able to love someone of my own gender. I do not need to slander straight people in order to affirm my own orientation.
Yet this novel ex-gay “orientation” proposed by PFOX rarely exists without setting itself explicitly in opposition to the lives, loves and relationship of gay men and women.
It is obvious that PFOX’s bid for protection is about the ex-gay ideology, not an orientation. With so little substance, this campaign is little more than a transparent ploy for publicity for a dying and increasingly desperate ex-gay movement.
Ex-gay is a sexual identity like atheism is a religion.
Being supposedly ‘ex-gay’ or ‘formerly homosexual’ or whatever one wishes to term it is not a sexual orientation at all. It is [primarily] a religious viewpoint. As such it is protected under tolerance of religion and need not be included as PFOX would have it.
I think the reason they want to add it is because they know an ex-gay is not straight, but a homosexual who acts like a heterosexual.
Very concise, Dave. You illustrated my own thoughts on this nicely, thanks.
Once again, here’s another example of the religious reicht wanting *special rights* in order to shove their hate and bigotry in everyone’s faces.
Oh yes, really? Is the documentation accessible, and if so, where? I want to know about the documented cases of people being sacked from their jobs because it has come to light that, although they were once gay, they have now apparently become heterosexual or asexual. I want to see the documentary evidence concerning gangs of gay thugs who prowl around the town looking for former homosexuals to beat up. I want to read the authenticated stories of those who have been disowned by their families because they have abandoned “the gay lifestyle”. I want to know all about the school pupils and university students who are being teased and bullied because it is known or suspected that they have “overcome their same sex attractions”.
Ex-gay claims are treated with increasingly severe scepticism – and rightly so, in my view – but scepticism is not intolerance.
I am convinced that Marlene is correct: what these ex-gay activists really want are special rights, viz. the right to harass gays, especially those who are still coming to terms with their natural orientation, by bombarding them with ex-gay literature and nagging at them; and the right to complain that the “ex-gay orientation” is being discriminated against when they are firmly told that this nuisance must now cease.
Um….there is being excluded in WRITTEN policy, and there is being excluded, discriminated against or threatened through PUBLIC accommodation.
There really IS no EXPLICIT category in a written policy that an ex gay fits into because it’s so NON SPECIFIC. There is no need for an EXCLUSIVE category.
You’re either gay or not, sexually active or not, and no public accommodation can WRITE celibate or not gay into a policy. It’s more a state of mind, rather than a social state where there is a history of exclusion BASED on that situation. How would anyone know you’re ex gay unless you tell them, and WHEN, on disclosing that, suddenly you’re barred from public access?
There are all sorts of places that don’t allow preaching and prostelytizing. Theme parks in particular, who have ALL inclusive policies in place, don’t allow anyone to promote their RELIGIOUS PRACTICES and beliefs in those venues.
You can BE whatever religion you want, of course. You can’t say it’s better or more desirable than anyone else’s, or that you’re a BETTER person because of that religion than other people sharing the venue and you can’t use someone else’s turf to say so.
You’re not ABUSED by being treated like everyone ELSE is.
I worked in Universal Studios Hollywood for years. No visitors are allowed to abuse each other or USH personnel, and certainly no personnel can do so to visitors.
PFOX trivializes the meaning of discrimination and respect for coexistence. They are such whiny pants wetters, no wonder they don’t know how to STAND UP for those truly confronted with injustice from day to day.
I don’t even know how they expect ordinary mortals to a MINDSET into a contract or how to ENFORCE it.
How can you demand this kind of accommodation, when you have none for other people?
These are the most contradictory, hypocritical and mind numbingly SELF involved and SELFISH people I’ve ever seen.
And that’s the point, how can you write CONTRADICTIONS into a policy of public accommodation?
98% of Disney Stock Shareholders voted against PFOX Resolution… Enough Said, buzz off PFOX, get over it, normal folks aren’t buying PFOX Propaganda.
Yet this novel ex-gay “orientation” proposed by PFOX rarely exists without setting itself explicitly in opposition to the lives, loves and relationship of gay men and women.
and it’s also not found anywhere in nature or biology, whereas homosexuality, and homosexual pairings ARE.
Ex-gay is a political and/or religious orientation, not a sexual orientation.