Soulforce Targeting Your School

Dear College Officials:

We are Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays (PFOX), a nonprofit organization made of up mothers, fathers, grandparents, friends, teachers, and community leaders supporting families who love their homosexual children unconditionally. While many well-intentioned groups teach that the only way for parents to do this is to affirm a gay identity and homosexual behavior, we believe that love is truly unconditional only when we love our children as beautiful, individual human beings—regardless of any other factors. PFOX’s mission is to provide community education and outreach to families with gay children and to protect the right of homosexual individuals to leave a gay identity. (FYI, our Q&A about the ex-gay community is online.)

We are deeply concerned that your institution is among over one dozen colleges and universities targeted this fall by Soulforce, an organization dedicated to crafting a version of Christianity that approves of homosexual behavior. For the third year in a row, Soulforce is conducting its so-called “Equality Ride,” a bus tour through traditionally Christian colleges and universities across the southern United States, modeled after the famous Freedom Rides of the 1960s Civil Rights movement. The tour’s stated goal is “to carefully and collectively examine the intersection wherein faith meets gender and sexuality.” But sadly, Soulforce deceptively hijacks the language and moral capital of the Civil Rights movement to promote Soulforce’s own ideology and to attack ex-gays and their families.

While Soulforce claims to embrace a message of tolerance for human differences, they mischaracterize the beliefs of ex-gays and their allies as “extremely dangerous.” They say our actions serve “only to inject fear and lower self-esteem,” and they relegate conservative Christian colleges and universities to “epicenters of oppression” on par with racist, segregated communities in the 1960s. Soulforce even maintains a dossier on its website painting mainline Christian denominations in America as purveyors of bigotry and injustice because they obey the Biblical proscription against homosexual behavior and honor marriage as the union of a man and a woman.

In their press statements and published resources, Soulforce demeans the stories of ex-gay men and women and demonizes those like PFOX who advocate for the ex-gay community. In 2007, Soulforce presented an “Ex-Gay Survivor’s Conference” to bash the ex-gay movement and label ex-gay men and women as victims “damaged by the message that God does not love and affirm you.” Rather than foster true tolerance and diversity, Soulforce’s tactics and rhetoric are designed to pressure your institution into granting Soulforce a mouthpiece to project its agenda onto your student body.

We are saddened that Soulforce claims to provide truth and tolerance to serve the needs of homosexual students. In reality, they bring to the table prejudice and hatred toward the ex-gay community and anyone who disagrees with Soulforce’s theology. And it is the students who can suffer because of this.

We at PFOX, on the other hand, are ready and eager to help with answers and solutions. For nearly a decade, we have been stabilizing families and strengthening communities with our message of true tolerance and unconditional love. Youths and their families testify that our resources have led them to hope and healing.

For vulnerable students on your campus who struggle with same-sex attractions, we offer information to cut through the confusion and offer alternatives to a gay identity. We also provide resources for parents to facilitate family communication and understanding.

Soulforce should practice what they preach by ensuring inclusion and diversity that includes the ex-gay community. Please reject the close-minded intolerance of groups like Soulforce. And we urge you to include the ex-gay community in public forums about this issue.

We hope that your institution will stand up for the true interests of homosexual-tempted students on campus and their families. Our organization will be honored to support you in this mission by providing you with student brochures for campus guidance offices and ex-gay books for your library. Thank you.

Sincerely,

Regina

Regina Griggs
Executive Director
PFOX
Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays & Gays
Box 510, Reedville VA 22539
804-453-4737
pfox@pfox.org
www.pfox.org