Maryland public school officials silence PFOX, ADF attorneys respond

Teachers send harassing e-mails; school personnel incite students to toss PFOX fliers in trash

PFOX News Advisory: July 17, 2007
PFOX@pfox.org www.pfox.org
Contact: ADF MEDIA RELATIONS at (480) 444-0020

ROCKVILLE, Maryland – Attorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) sent a letter clarifying the law Monday to school board officials in Montgomery County, Maryland because some teachers and principals have engaged in viewpoint discrimination and censorship against Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays & Gays (PFOX), with whom they don’t agree.

“School officials do not have the right to engage in censorship of viewpoints they don’t like,” said ADF Senior Legal Counsel David Cortman. “The board has a policy permitting the distribution of literature by outside organizations and community groups, and it is unconstitutional then for district employees to single out certain organizations for censorship.”

When PFOX distributed its flyers to students, a teacher from Thomas S. Wootten High School and co-sponsor of that school’s Gay Straight Alliance (GSA) club accused PFOX of being “like the KKK but only in the form of religion.” Using his school issued email account, the teacher wrote to PFOX: “STAY OUT OF OUR SCHOOLS AND LEAVE OUR CHILDREN ALONE!” Another teacher from Winston Churchill High School vowed that he “and many of [his] colleagues” would “fight further intrusions of your group into our public schools.” Some school personnel went as far as to place PFOX’s name on trash cans in the main lobby of the school and incited students to throw out PFOX’s fliers.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, whose decisions are binding on school districts in Maryland, held on two different occasions that community organizations have a First Amendment right to have schools distribute information to students without content- and viewpoint-based discrimination.

The Montgomery County Board of Education is also embattled in a controversy regarding its new sex education curriculum, which teaches tolerance and empathy for homosexuals, bisexuals, cross-dressers, and other non-heterosexuals. Despite repeated requests by PFOX to include ex-gays in the new “Respect for Differences in Human Sexuality” curriculum, the school board has refused.

A copy of the letter ADF attorneys sent to Montgomery County Board of Education President Nancy Navarro can be read at www.telladf.org/UserDocs/MontgomeryCountyLetter.pdf

More information on Montgomery County Board of Education’s failure to teach tolerance of the ex-gay community can be read here and here.

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ADF is a legal alliance defending the right to hear and speak the Truth through strategy, training, funding, and litigation.

PFOX leads the nation in providing outreach, education, and public awareness in support of families and the ex-gay community. www.pfox.org