From SPLC's Teaching Tolerance: Focus on the Family Goes After LGBT Students

[Emit]

For the last few days, an “educational analyst” for Focus on the Family has been getting a lot of press. She’s been suggesting that anti-bullying efforts that draw attention to the harassment of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) students are part of a “gay agenda” to “sneak homosexuality lessons into classrooms.”

One can argue, as some have, that Focus on the Family is a fringe group that doesn’t represent the majority of Christians in the United States. That’s true. But it’s also true that Focus on the Family has an outsized impact on conservative thought in this country. And by using deception and spin, the group has managed this week to grab the media spotlight. The goal is apparently to make schools less safe for LGBT students and more safe for their harassers. That cannot be ignored.

It’s also impossible to ignore Focus on the Family’s smarmy tactics. Taking a page out of George Orwell, the group has developed a website for parents designed to “challenge the monopoly.” They’ve named it TrueTolerance.org. Sound familiar?

Teaching Tolerance has been fighting for children and teachers for 20 years. We can say with certainty that the Focus on the Family campaign has nothing to do with tolerance. And it has nothing to do with keeping children safe. The harassment of LGBT students is rampant and destructive, as has been detailed in the new Teaching Tolerance documentary, Bullied: A School, a Student and a Case that Made History. This film tells the story of Jamie Nabozny, a gay student who was tormented and beaten by bullies while school officials steadfastly looked the other way.

~snip~

The group has its own agenda that could be roughly boiled down to three points:

:bluebox: LGBT students should be invisible. The group argues, with absolutely no evidence, that generic anti-bullying policies that don’t name LGBT bullying are “most effective.” (...)

:bluebox: LGBT allies should be silent. Focus on the Family says essentially, “Don’t focus on the victim, focus on the bad behavior of the bully.” (...)

:bluebox: School administrators and teachers should be very, very afraid. After terrifying parents that their kindergarteners are soon to be the target of homosexual indoctrination, TrueTolerance.org offers up a menu of deception designed to rally the forces of fear. (...)

Focus on the Family’s biggest fear is that schools will reflect a diverse U.S. society—one that includes LGBT students. They do not want to be challenged in their belief that homosexuality is immoral, abnormal and changeable.

We don’t expect to change those personal beliefs. Simply put, our goal is to ask those who would ignore the pain and suffering of these children to understand that acknowledging the problem of anti-LGBT bullying...

The alternative is to stay silent and stand by while terrible things happen to other people’s children. Terrible things that no parent would ever want to happen to his or her own child.

We are glad to stand up for LGBT students and we will not rest until educators across the country do so as well. We are glad to work with groups like GLSEN, PFLAG and Welcoming Schools (a project of the Human Rights Campaign), three of the “gay activist” organizations Focus on the Family is gunning for. And we are proud that they have endorsed the movie “Bullied” as a tool for fighting against anti-gay bigotry.

http://www.tolerance.org/blog/focus-family-goes-after-lgbt-students

[ck4829]

1. K&R

[Initech]

2. I absolutely despise FOTF. They're just a bunch of bullies, nothing more.

[Coexist]

3. .

[EFerrari]

4. K&R