I could never understand why the anti-gay ideologues trying to prevent the honest, humane discussion of sexual orientation in Montgomery County schools fought tooth and nail to keep this statement out of the curriculum:
Children who have fleeting same-sex attractions may assume incorrectly that they are gay or lesbian. Mere fleeting attraction does not prove sexual orientation.
Why would they object to this? I would think that, of all the statements of fact in the curriculum, this is the one they would approve of – after all, it recognizes that adolescent feelings and identities can be confusing, and resists the tendency to label.
Now we know why the anti-gay activists didn’t want teachers telling students this – it would undermine the next lie they were preparing to tell. The newest anti-gay talking point is the claim that teachers and guidance counselors are telling students the opposite – that if they have same-sex attractions, they are gay. This is from the notoriously far right Arlington Diocese, published in the “culture war” journal First Things, but I’ve recently seen the same material, almost word-for-word, from other local Anti-Gay Industry outlets:
[Allowing Gay/Straight Alliances] means the approval of homosexuality and, in a new form of name-calling, an insistence that adolescents who experience same-sex attractions “come out” as homosexual…
…they immediately conclude that an adolescent with homosexual inclinations must necessarily be homosexual, or gay, or lesbian, or transgendered – whichever label fits…
…Adolescents legitimately confused or anxious about their sexuality receive the advice to assume the homosexual label…[emphases added]
Etcetera.
This is the new meme for attacking Gay/Straight Alliances, and we’ll be hearing it over and over from “Virginia Family Foundation,” “PFOX,” Chuck Colson’s “Prison Fellowship Ministries,” Lynn Chapman’s “Family Leader Network,” and other familiar AGI tools. The appearance of this meme indicates that there will be more legislative attempts to interfere with GSAs and student rights in the upcoming General Assembly session. We’ll keep you posted with updates as the bills are filed.
You can help educate lawmakers and protect our young people by participating in Equality Virginia’s Lobby Day and Legislative Reception in Richmond, Thursday, January 24. As always, a Loudoun delegation will be traveling down for the day, and we’ll arrange carpooling as needed. No experience is necessary, training will be provided. Register here.
David,
Can you provide more detail on the tooth and nail fighting. I guess it’s easier for the AGI to assign an argument to their “opponents” if they don’t have written documentation to prove that they are being absolutely devious deceptive and deceitful.
Yes. There were, in the original curriculum, 5 statements regarding sexual orientation from the policy positions of mainstream medical associations like the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, etc. This was one of them. The statements were excluded by school officials in an attempt to appease the anti-gay members of the Citizens Advisory Committee that helped develop the new curriculum, even though those members were outvoted and the Committee recommended that the statements be included. Peter Sprigg of Family Research Council was representing PFOX on the Committee.
From the Blade:
There are more links to the story here. Needless to say, appeasement doesn’t work. As we later saw, these same folks sought an injunction, and then filed a lawsuit against the School Board, anyway. The lawsuit was filed by PFOX, CRC, and Family Leader Network, and we saw how that turned out. Now the trifecta has reinvented itself as “Citizens for Responsible Government” and is working to protect the “right” to discriminate against transgender people.