Changing minds

Former homosexuals who had renounced same-sex relations were called “offensive” by delegates to this month’s annual convention of the 2.7-million-member National Education Association (NEA).

“I’m really offended that you’re even here,” a delegate wearing the rainbow emblem of the NEA Gay Lesbian Bisexual Transgender Caucus told a supporter of the new NEA Ex-Gay Educators Caucus.

The Ex-Gay Educators Caucus distributed literature explaining that scientific research shows that homosexuality is not “a fixed, inborn trait.”

Other opponents of the Ex-Gay Educators Caucus, whose exhibit was permitted for the first time at this year’s union gathering at the D.C. Convention Center, also challenged the NEA’s claim of being democratic and diverse.

One delegate who visited the exhibit told caucus members that there was “a special place in hell for us,” said caucus founder Jeralee Smith from California, an elementary special-education teacher and former lesbian.

She said another NEA delegate remarked, “You might as well set up a Ku Klux Klan booth right next to you.”

Noe Gutierrez Jr. of California, a former homosexual activist who is now a member of the Ex-Gay Educators Caucus, said the intolerance was a shocking repudiation of anti-prejudice views voiced by advocacy groups and the NEA.

“Prejudice is assuming you know someone before you take the time to know them,” said Mr. Gutierrez, who was featured as a spokesman in a 1998 Public Broadcasting Service TV special on presenting homosexual issues in the schools.

“People made the association between us and gay-bashers,” he said. “I mean, they definitely lumped us in with a whole lot of bad and came to our booth with that attitude, not open in any way to learning. Isn’t that funny? So at an educators caucus, there is no learning taking place. No one who came to yell at us or who could be angry with us came with an open mind or were ready to learn anything.”

Opposition to the message of the Ex-Gay Educators Caucus is led by Kevin Jennings, a former private school teacher in Massachusetts and founder of the Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network. Mr. Jennings is a partner with the NEA in promoting acceptance of homosexuality through curriculum materials in the nation’s schools as early as kindergarten and elementary grades. He was given the NEA’s human rights “creative leadership” award at this year’s convention.

“Ex-gay messages have no place in our nation’s public schools,” Mr. Jennings said in a publication of the Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network. “A line has been drawn. There is no ‘other side’ when you’re talking about lesbian, gay and bisexual students.”

Warren Throckmorton, past president of the American Mental Health Counselors Association, disagreed.

“Kids want to understand themselves. It’s very early in life to make a definition about one’s sexual identity. Educators should give kids options to wait awhile, to consider a straight identity if they would rather that,” he said.

“If you’ve got teachers in schools telling kids that their same-sex attractions mean they are gay, they could foreclose on the option of waiting awhile to discover their sexual identity and their option to discover their heterosexual potential. The earlier that you decide on a sexual label, the more likely you are to experiment with sex.”

But homosexual advocates within the NEA and outside groups sent out word that this was an important battle for them.

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