Flyers Promoting ‘Ex-Gay’ Organization Sent Home With Md. High Schoolers

Students at Albert Einstein High School in Montgomery County, Md., received flyers last week claiming that sexual orientation is mutable and that gay people can change to become heterosexual. 

The flyers were printed and provided by Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays (PFOX), an organization that promotes the “ex-gay” idea that homosexuality is an aberration of stunted social development resulting from environmental factors. Consequently, the group claims that therapy aimed at these underlying factors can foster “opposite-sex attractions,” leading gay people to live happy heterosexual lifestyles.

As University of California-Davis psychology Professor Gregory Herek notes on his web site, there is little evidence that gay conversion therapy works either to prevent or “cure” homosexuality, and instead evidence that it harms many people. The American Psychiatric Association, American Psychological Association, and American Counseling Organization have disavowed so-called reparative therapies, stating unequivocally that homosexuality is not a mental disorder to be cured.

Montgomery County officials say that a 2006 lawsuit prevents them from “discriminating” against nonprofit organizations that wish to send home informational flyers with students (no word on whether they could disallow the practice completely).

The county policy states that anything that complies with school code and is provided by a registered nonprofit must be allowed, with a disclaimer distancing it from school policy; at the same time, it’s impossible to imagine that the school would turn a blind eye to non-ideological falsehoods—say, a flyer claiming that leeches could cure the flu. While the school code prohibits “hate speech,” that term is notoriously difficult to define.

In other words, there’s little to protect high school students (and their parents) from this dangerous nonsense. That’s not a coincidence: The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force found in 2005 that ex-gay organizations were increasingly targeting youth. Calling it the “third wave of ex-gay activism,” the task force stated that it “focuses less on ‘curing’ adults of homosexuality and more on preventing its development by targeting parents, children, and adolescents.”

The flyer makes little mention of these ideas. Instead, it discourages students from identifying themselves or others as gay—a worthy sentiment tainted by the encouragement of so-called reparative therapy designed to make gay people straight. Sexuality is more complicated than a gene, sure; the conclusion that homosexuality is a result of poor social skills or sexual addiction, and that it is mentally and physically damaging, is pure homophobia.  

It takes two web site clicks to get from PFOX’s main page to an article (from the early 1990s, presented with no context) about a gay leader indicted for raping a minor. There are many similar articles, including one about “discrimination against heterosexuals” and the diary of an ex-gay man who refers to gay sex as “acting out” and writes that whenever he sees gay men, “I can't help but instantly recognize all the inferiorities that I used to posses [sic].”

The web site is an apt parallel for the flyers: Underneath the affirming veneer lies rampant homophobic misinformation, which alienates and isolates teenagers already struggling with their sexuality.

Montgomery County may disagree, but that really should count as hate speech—or as blatant inaccuracies that have no place in schools. 

Shay O'Reilly is a staff writer with Campus Progress. Follow him on Twitter @shaygabriel.

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