Evergreen Update Newsletter
April 6, 2006
Gay Issues and Public Schools
In 2005, 14 high schools in the Salt Lake area had Gay Straight Alliances. There are many in all cities across the country. The following information may be helpful to you:
How to respond to a gay-straight alliance at your school. PFOX (Parents and Friends of Ex-gays) has posted some ideas on their Web site. See “Ten Ways to Respond to a Gay/Straight Alliance (GSA) Club at your school” at http://www.pfox.org/asp/newsman/templates/newstemplate.asp?articleid=240&zoneid=3
Ex-Gay in the Classroom: There is a new page on Inqueery's website called "Steps for Introducing the Ex-Gay Perspective in Schools." See http://www.inqueery.com/html/ex-gay_steps.html
The Christian Broadcasting Network (www.cbn.com) has a number of good articles about homosexuality, such as Selling Homosexuality to America ) and Hardwired for Homosexuality?
A representative from the Christian Educators Association recently met with
Kevin Jennings of the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network (GLSEN). They
crafted a document called "Public Schools and Sexual Orientation: A First
Amendment Framework for Finding Common Ground" which seeks to set ground rules
for the manner of discourse between the two sides. Recently, the document has
come under fire from conservative groups who don't think Christians should be
dialoguing with gay advocacy groups. Dr. Warren Throckmorton and Chad Thompson (www.Inqueery.com)
wrote an article for Townhall.com to defend the actions of the Christian
Educators
Association, and also to affirm principles of free speech and delineate how they
believe the ex-gay viewpoint should be advocated in the public schools. See
http://www.townhall.com/opinion/columns/thompsonandthrockmorton/2006/04/04/192340.html.
The document that created the controversy is at
http://www.ceai.org/post_file/public_schools_and_sexual_orientation.pdf.