In Brief

Staff Reports

LGBTQ Equality Rights Groups Launch Flyer Campaign To Counter Anti-Gay PFOX Flyers In Maryland Schools

ROCKVILLE, MARYLAND -- Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, (PFLAG) along with the Southern Poverty Law Center, (SPLC) and Equality Maryland announced Wednesday that they had delivered 50,000 flyers to all 25 high schools in Montgomery County to be sent home with students. "The goal is to counter misinformation spread by the PFOX  flyers , (Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays), which were distributed to students in five county high schools in February according to David S. Fishback spokesperson for PFLAG.

Virginia-based PFOX had sent home  flyers  with the message that homosexuality is not innate and gay people can change their identities. LGBTQ rights advocates decried those flyers labeling them anti-gay and harmful. Parents, students, staff, and the Superintendent of Montgomery County Schools, Joshua Starr, were offended saying that the message was intolerant or potentially damaging to LGBTQ students.

The 50,000  flyers distributed today includes a message from PFLAG on one side that sexual orientation is not a choice and that mainstream medical and mental health professional organizations agree that “there is nothing wrong with you” if you are gay.

“Individuals do not choose to be homosexual or heterosexual, nor is it something ‘that voluntarily can be changed,’” the flier says.

On the other side, the Southern Poverty Law Center challenges ex-gay therapies as ineffective and potentially harmful because they “present views of homosexuality that may reinforce self-hatred caused by societal prejudice.”

The school board in an executive board session last month decided to reconsider its flyer distribution policy, which currently allows any non-profit to send home leaflets at certain points throughout the year.  A new policy is expected to take effect next fall for the 2012-2013 school year.