SEXUAL ORIENTATION CONSENSUS GUIDELINES DO NOT INCLUDE EX-GAYS.

Nice of PFOX to put us on their mailing list. We here at TeachTheFacts.org just received an email from Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays (which really should be PFOX-GAG, shouldn't it?), touting the new consensus guidelines that were released this week by the First Amendment Center. That document is the result of a collaboration among Christian groups, gay advocacy organizations, educators, and others, trying to sort out how public schools should approach teaching about sexual orientation.

Of course this is an important issue for us right now, as the Montgomery County Public Schools are about to evaluate and test a new curriculum on the subject of sexual orientation. And as PFOX has a member on the citizens advisory committee that will evaluate the curriculum, I think they expect that "ex-gays" should be mentioned in the classes.

The PFOX email is a press release with the headline:

SEXUAL ORIENTATION CONSENSUS GUIDELINES INCLUDE EX-GAYS

New public school guidelines endorsed by gay group GLSEN and Christian organization CEAI

So, wow, this is pretty big news. If these experts all got together and discussed this, and hashed over drafts of this document, and if they felt that "ex-gays" needed to be in a public school curriculum, well, that would really be a pretty big boost for their side. Because, to tell you the truth, right now I don't think anybody believes it should be taught.

But there it is: SEXUAL ORIENTATION CONSENSUS GUIDELINES INCLUDE EX-GAYS.

Then I was thinking, y'know, just today I printed this document out and read it, and I didn't remember seeing "ex-gays" anywhere in it. So just now I went to the web site again, downloaded the document, and searched for the word "ex-gay." I searched for "exgay", "ex gay", everything I could think of, and there's just nothing there. I even scanned it with my eyeballs, the old-fashioned way, to see if the words would jump out at me. Nada.

So I read this PFOX email a little closer. It starts out:

WASHINGTON, DC – The First Amendment Center has released the first consensus guidelines to help public schools develop sexual orientation policies. The new guidelines advise school officials to include the viewpoints of all participants in order to develop policies that promote fairness for all. According to Charles Haynes, a primary drafter of the guidelines and Senior Scholar at the First Amendment Center, the ex-gay viewpoint in public schools is protected by the First Amendment and should be heard.

Haynes explained that incidents such as the one last year in Montgomery County, Maryland, might have been avoided had guidelines like these been in place. In that case, Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays & Gays (PFOX) successfully sued the Montgomery County School Board for failing to include the ex-gay viewpoint. Haynes said, “Americans are deeply divided over homosexuality in our society. But if public school officials and community leaders use the ground rules of the First Amendment, they can reach agreement on how public schools can guard the rights of all students in a safe learning environment.”

I'm still waiting for the part where they say the "consensus guidelines include ex-gays."

One of the endorsers to the guidelines also agrees that school officials should consider the ex-gay viewpoint. “The strength in the framework of the guidelines is that all sides should be heard and this does include the ex-gay perspective, ” said Finn Laursen, director of Christian Educators Association International (CEAI).

“As PFOX continues to work for inclusion and respect of the ex-gay viewpoint in public schools nationwide, we are assured by the consensus guidelines that the ex-gay viewpoint is protected by the First Amendment,” said Regina Griggs, PFOX Director. “In too many schools, the ex-gay viewpoint is censored or marginalized. Now school districts are held to a standard of respect. According to the new guidelines, actions by educators to exclude some views merely because they disagree with them constitute viewpoint discrimination in violation of the First Amendment.”

There're a couple more paragraphs. Nothing about the consensus guidelines including ex-gays.

People, the consensus guidelines do not include ex-gays.

I want to be nice, I don't want to call anybody a liar or anything. But ... who wrote that headline?

So what does the document actually say? Rather than summarize the five-page document, I'll quote the First Amendment Center's own press release:

The first consensus guidelines created to help to educators, students and parents develop local policies and practices to address issues involving sexual orientation in public schools were announced today by the First Amendment Center.

"Americans are deeply divided over homosexuality in our society," said Charles Haynes, senior scholar at the First Amendment Center. "But if school officials and community members use the ground rules of the First Amendment, they can reach agreement on how public schools can guard the rights of all students in a safe learning environment."

The nonpartisan guidelines call on school officials to be "fair, honest brokers of a dialogue that involves all stakeholders and seeks the common good." The recommended strategies include:

-- Create a "common ground" task force, with representatives with a wide range of community views, to advise school officials on issues such as safety in school, student expression and curricula;

-- Agree on protecting everyone's First Amendment rights and reach a shared understanding of current law;

-- Avoid "us v. them" political arguments, and permit all sides in the debate to be heard;

-- Provide educational opportunities for administrators, teachers, parents and students about basic First Amendment principles of rights, responsibilities and respect.

Primary drafters of the guidelines were Haynes and Wayne Jacobsen of BridgeBuilders, an organization that helps schools and communities find common ground on religious issues. Representatives from the Christian Educators Association International (CEAI) and the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) also served on the drafting committee and endorsed the process recommended in the guide. Two national educational leadership groups, the American Association of School Administrators and the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD) have also endorsed the guidelines.

CEAI is a professional association of Christian educators serving in public and private schools. GLSEN is a national education organization focused on ensuring safe schools for all students. First Consensus Guidelines Developed For Public Schools Regarding Sexual Orientation

These all sound like good suggestions.

PFOX got a couple of members of the committee who wrote this document to express support for them and their mission -- in an interview. Of course they didn't put anything about "ex-gays" in the guidelines themselves -- it would have been ridiculous to try, and nobody would have agreed to it. Nobody in their right mind would really suggest that teaching about "ex-gays" was an important part of a curriculum on sexual orientation in the public schools.