Maryland Schools Finally Say "No More" to Fraudulent "Ex-Gay" Group

For years now the Christianist funded "Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays, a/k/a PFOX has been working to disseminate its bogus junk science based ex-gay propaganda in the Montgomery County, Maryland schools.  Never mind that every legitimate medical and mental health association states that the ex-gay myth is a lie and potentially very harmful.  Thankfully, the school division has belatedly said "No" to allowing PFOX's poisonous and fraudulent in the public schools.  This step has required that other legitimate materials likewise be banned from distribution to students, but the school division decided that it was a trade off worth making.  A piece in The New Civil Rights Movement looks at this action which has slammed the doors on PFOX's fraudulent, witch doctor like propaganda.  Here are highlights:

The Montgomery County, Maryland School Board made just such a sacrifice on behalf of their students this summer. An organized band of predators with their own virulent form of creeping crud, is stalking their gay and questioning middle school and high school students. The group, known as PFOX, Parents and Friends of Ex Gays, is actively targeting at-risk kids who are confused about sex and sexuality. PFOX not only tells kids who feel an attraction to someone of the same-sex that something is wrong with them, they tell their parents that sexual preference is a choice, and if they would just turn their children over to the tender mercies of PFOX, they will put them straight; and they do this at the very time in the teen’s life when psychologists say the support of the parent is critical for his (or her) successful future.

The Montgomery School District did not want to be complicit in that message, in fact they required a disclaimer saying nothing about the PFOX program was endorsed by the school, but PFOX had burrowed itself into a legal loophole. Montgomery County schools had a longstanding community outreach program that allowed local businesses and non-profit groups to send home fliers with the students four times a year. It was envisioned as a way local businesses could offer special deals, or groups could organize after school activities. But for six long years, PFOX used the program to send out it’s misinformation fliers, trumpeting their “success” while doing who knows what damage to gay and questioning kids and their families.

Parents complained. Students complained. The local media would run stories about PFOX every time they sent out one of their fliers, causing even Montgomery County residents without school-aged children to complain too. Joshua Starr, the new Superintendent of Montgomery County Schools, called the PFOX fliers “reprehensible” and “deplorable” when a student challenged him on the subject at a meet-the-new-boss town hall meeting. 

[T]his June, the Montgomery school board finally decided it was better that no one be allowed to send out fliers than to continue to allow PFOX to plague the families in the district for another school year. On a 6-1 vote, the school board ended the flier program for all the middle schools and high schools in the district.

Now we wait for the PFOX response. Their leadership is angry. Peter Sprigg, who sits on the group’s board of directors, sniped, “I don’t think censorship is the message that we should be teaching students in a free society.” Sprigg says with a straight face the PFOX message is not homophobic nor is it hate speech, which is the only thing the federal judge told the schools they could reject.

Will PFOX seek revenge by targeting 5 to 11-year-olds? The school flier program is still operating in the elementary schools.   .   .   .   .    So make your predictions. Will PFOX attempt to send their garbage science home through the grade-schoolers? If they try, will the Montgomery County School Board again take a stand to protect the vulnerable kids in their charge? We will certainly be watching when the school bell rings in the next round of this prize fight come September. PFOX and the resistance of the Montgomery School Board, will remain On Our Radar.

One can only hope that the school division will take whatever future actions needed to keep PFOX's lies and deliberate misinformation away from school children.  Subjecting students to such lies is in my opinion nothing short of child abuse.