RESPONSE TO PFOX FLIERS
Presentation by David S. Fishback, Advocacy Chair, Metro D.C. Chapter of Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) to the Montgomery County Board of Education
February 27, 2012
Good afternoon. I speak on behalf of the Metro DC Chapter of Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays.
Later today, the Board will discuss the MCPS flyer distribution program in light of recent distributions by PFOX. PFLAG applauds Dr. Starr’s public response to the PFOX fliers, calling them “reprehensible and deplorable.” But MCPS should do more. It should explain why the PFOX message is dangerous.
PFOX touts the false notion that people can choose to change their sexual orientation through therapies -- a notion that contributes to misconceptions that can lead to bullying or lead students (or their parents) to seek therapies that lead to depression and even suicide. That is why they are condemned by every mainstream American medical and mental health professional association.
While the MCPS secondary health education curriculum does a very good job in introducing issues surrounding sexual orientation and identity, it says nothing about the therapies urged by PFOX.
Moreover, our health teachers may not affirmatively discuss the discredited notion that being gay is an illness. The tightly-scripted curriculum bars teachers from telling students that being gay is not an illness unless that specific question is asked. But if students are too afraid or embarrassed to ask, then the subject may not be discussed. This is something that straight, as well as gay, students need to know. The more people know, the more likely they will not see minorities as “the other.”
Fortunately, these omissions may be easily remedied. Both the Maryland Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Board’s own Citizens Advisory Committee have urged MCPS to include in the curriculum the mainstream medical community's teaching that being gay is not an illness and that the American Medical Association opposes the sort of “therapies” advanced by PFOX.
So regardless of whether PFOX is prevented from doing future distributions, MCPS can and should strengthen its health curriculum.
[Attached is my February 17, 2012 letter to the Board and Dr. Starr on this subject.]
February 17, 2012
The Honorable Shirley Brandman, President
Montgomery County Board of Education
Dr. Joshua Starr, Superintendent
Montgomery County Public Schools
850 Hungerford Drive
Rockville, Maryland 20852
RE: MCPS Health Education Curriculum and the PFOX Fliers
Dear President Brandman and Dr. Starr:
The recent controversy surrounding the distribution of PFOX fliers in some of our high schools brings into focus an important issue regarding the MCPS 8th and 10 Grade health units entitled Respect for Differences in Human Sexuality.
We at Metro DC PFLAG appreciate your concern, as expressed in Dr. Starr’s public statements about the PFOX fliers and the Board’s expressed desire to examine the flyer distribution program. See http://www.gazette.net/article/20120214/NEWS/702149980/1124/montgomery-board-of-education-to-re-examine-policy-on-fliers-after&template=gazette.
The most significant issue concerning the fliers is the message that PFOX presses on its website, which it invites readers to visit. While attempting to make their flyer benign, PFOX, on its website, touts the notion that people can change their orientation through therapies. See, for example, http://pfox.org/therapist_parents.html and http://pfox.org/Facts_on_full_sheet_Apr_1.pdf Such therapies are condemned by every mainstream American medical and mental health professional organization, including the American Medical Association.[1]
The PFOX canards, particularly if unrebutted by MCPS, contribute to misconceptions about sexual orientation that can lead to bullying in our schools or lead students (or their parents) to seek therapies that are dangerous to students’ health. MCPS has instructed high school guidance offices to have the correct information available, and to use it when these issues come up. But there is no general distribution by MCPS of the actual facts.
While the Respect for Differences in Human Sexuality units do a good job in introducing issues surrounding sexual orientation and identity, albeit in a strictly scripted manner, they say nothing about so-called “reparative” or “conversion” therapies – therapies which are what PFOX is peddling to our students. Moreover, our health teachers may not discuss the notion that being gay is a sickness, unless students ask about it. The tightly scripted curriculum provides this instruction to teachers:
If students ask, “Is homosexuality an illness?” say, “No. The American Psychiatric Association does not include homosexuality in its listing of psychiatric or mental disorders.”
But if students are too afraid or embarrassed to ask, then the subject may not be discussed. This is something that straight, as well as gay, students need to know. The more people know, the more likely they will not see minorities as “the other.”
At the moment, our health classes do not counter what PFOX says. That, I suspect, is one of the major reasons for the community outrage at the PFOX fliers. Dr. Starr’s public response, calling the PFOX fliers “reprehensible and deplorable” was very appropriate, and we congratulate him for it. It sends the right signal to our community. But we must do more. Our students need to know the particulars of why the PFOX message is dangerous to people; that is why the health education curriculum needs to convey what our medical and mental health professionals tell us. Fortunately, so strengthening the health education curriculum would be easy and straightforward.
In September 2010, MCPS advisors from the Maryland Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) wrote to the Board of Education and former Superintendent Weast urging the inclusion of information on these and related topics. Last April, The Board of Education’s Citizens Advisory Committee on Family Life and Human Development (CAC) urged MCPS to follow the AAP’s advice. (Attached is the letter I wrote to the Board last April on this matter, which includes the CAC recommendation and the AAP letter.) Here are the two most significant recommendations for inclusion in what should be taught, and not just in response to student questions:
“Homosexuality is not a disease or a mental illness.”
“Sexual orientation is not a choice and the American Medical Association opposes ‘therapies’ that seek to change sexual orientation that are premised on the assumption that people should change their sexual orientation.”
This is something that should be done whether or not PFOX is prevented from doing future distributions. If the flyer distribution program allowing PFOX flyers is continued, MCPS would have an even greater responsibility to act.[2] In any event, we urge you to adopt the AAP and CAC recommendations in time for inclusion next semester.
Please let me know if I may be of any assistance.
Sincerely,
David S. Fishback, Advocacy Chair
Metro DC Chapter of PFLAG
Olney, MD
Attachment
[1] See http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/about-ama/our-people/member-groups-sections/glbt-advisory-committee/ama-policy-regarding-sexual-orientation.page (H-160.991 Health Care Needs of the Homosexual Population) and http://www.apa.org/pi/lgbt/resources/just-the-facts.pdf (Just the Facts About Sexual Orientation and Youth: A Primer for Principals, Educators, and School Personnel, developed by the American Psychological Association and endorsed by 13 other organizations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American School Counselors Association, and the National Association of School Psychologists).
[2] MCPS would be completely within its legal rights to add this information from our mainstream health organizations, without also including the incorrect PFOX material. PFOX’s contrary argument was rejected in the litigation that culminated in the Montgomery County Circuit Court in 2008 (discussed in the attached April 22, 2011 letter). Moreover, in the federal appellate decision which laid out the standards for the MCPS flyer distribution program, concluding that the program created a type of public forum, Child Evangelism Fellowship of Maryland v. MCPS, 457 F.3d 376 (4th Cir. 2006), http://pacer.ca4.uscourts.gov/opinion.pdf/051508.P.pdf, the court
reaffirmed the proposition that “when the government alone speaks [as through curriculum], it need not remain neutral as to viewpoint,” citing and quoting the Supreme Court’s decision in Rosenberger v. UVA, 515 U.S. 819, 833 (1995). This, of course, makes eminent sense. Otherwise, MCPS would be required to present Holocaust Denier material in history class discussions of World War II.
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