The Catholic Archdiocese of Cincinnati, Ohio is planning to fire the assistant principal at Purcell Marian High School for supporting marriage equality. On his personal blog last month, Mike Marosi wrote, “I unabashedly believe that gay people SHOULD be allowed to marry,” supporting his position with his Catholic faith. For that, he was placed on administrative leave on February 4, with the expectation that he would be fired if he didn’t recant the statements, which he has no intentions of doing.

Moroski has acknowledged that he violated the Archdiocese’s social media policy, but he denies that he has violated the terms of his contract, which require that he  ”comply with and act consistently in accordance with the stated philosophy and teachings of the Roman Catholic Church.” Though he knows the Roman Catholic Church does not approve marriage equality, he argues that speaking his conscience was in line with that obligation. He posted the following statement on his blog:

As a proud Catholic, I’m heartbroken that my belief that all committed, loving couples should be able to make a public pledge to take responsibility for each other for a lifetime has led to this ultimatum. The expressions of solidarity I have already received from Catholic priests, sisters and justice leaders in the community strengthen my faith during this difficult time. Due to my formation in Catholic grade school, high school and three Catholic universities – not to mention my marriage to the best Catholic I know, my relationship with numerous clergy and a devout Catholic family – I have firmly rooted my life in the Gospel principles of love and justice.

After twelve years of working with teenagers whose respect I have earned, I simply can’t teach them the wrong lesson now and deny my convictions. I would not be able to look them in the eye. I have tried to instill a sense of faith and fortitude in all of them regarding issues of justice for my entire adult life. I did not turn down the Archdiocese’s terms in spite of my faith. I turned them down because of my faith.

A Change.org petition is calling on the Archdiocese not to follow through on firing Moroski. The Archdiocese has said it will not comment on a personnel matter.

It’s still a bit early for prom season, but students, parents, and faculty at Sullivan High School in Indiana are already calling for a prom that bans gays from attending. Students believe that a “good prom” would be one where homosexuality is not allowed because “we don’t think it’s right nor should it be accepted.”

In addition to the basic homophobia at root in this story, what is quickly becoming a second story is the media’s attempt to cover up or tone down that anti-gay animus. Unsurprisingly, an invite-only Facebook group where proponents were publicly discussing the gay-free prom has disappeared, but not before plenty of screenshots were captured of the comments being made there. But even WTWO, the NBC affiliate that reported this story Sunday night, made numerous edits to the story since its first publication. For example, at one point, the video was removed from the story and the lede sentence (as was read by the anchor) was changed to soften its tone:

OLD: A team of Valley high schools and parents petition to ban gays from their prom.

NEW: A team of Valley high schoolers and parents rally for a traditional prom that bans gays.

Later Sunday evening, the odious testimony of special education teacher Diana Medley was significantly cut in a way that made her sound less anti-gay, though it has since been restored. Here were her comments to WTWO reporter Paige Preusse about how she believes nobody is born gay, as featured in the original news report that aired:

MEDLEY: I believe it was a choice that she made. I don’t believe that they were born that way. I think that life circumstances made them choose that. I think God made everybody equal.

PREUSSE: When a gay person, you know — do you consider them, maybe, that they have some sort of purpose in life?

MEDLEY: I don’t. I personally don’t, I’m sorry. I don’t understand it. A gay student, or adult, or person is going to come up and make some change unless they realize it was a choice and I’m choosing God.

The newly edited video featured with the article actually includes more comments from Medley than originally aired, but her comments about gays not having a purpose in life are not included in the printed version. Watch a clip of the original broadcast, which includes the anchor’s original lede — now cut from the posted video to reflect the change in the article:

It’s unclear what the fate of the prom is at this point, and school administrators have yet to weigh in. According to a Sullivan senior who contacted blogger Alvin McEwen, the proposed gay-free “traditional prom” would be a separate event not supported by the school, and not supported by all students. Two separate Facebook pages have been started calling for an inclusive prom, and a Change.org petition has been started calling for Medley to be disciplined for her offensive remarks suggesting gay people don’t have a purpose in life.

The thought of a school banning any conversation about LGBT diversity is disconcerting, but teaching untruths about sexual identities is even worse. That’s exactly what has been taking place in seventh-grade classrooms in Maryland’s Prince George’s County Public Schools (PGCPS) system, just outside Washington, DC. Health classes have been showing a video called “Acception” that promotes harmful ex-gay therapy under the guise of an anti-bullying message:

The 21-minute anti-bullying video, called “Acception,” at first appears to promote the acceptance of gay children. In the video, four students are assigned a project on homophobic bullying, with the group splitting up to study the issues of bullying and the origins of homosexuality. Two of the students encounter a cavemen parable about the origins of bullying, but the teens researching same-sex attraction soon find themselves in a different kind of scientifically dicey territory. While the video initially explores gay teenagers being bullied and a young man coming out to his parents, it soon features a student talking about how his once-lesbian cousin used therapy to become attracted to men. Then, the students in the video “watch” an interview with a gay-to-straight therapist.

In the following clip from the film, a woman talks about how depressed she was when she was coming to terms with her same-sex orientation because she was too afraid to tell anybody. When she finally admitted to her family, they “helped” her, essentially by forcing her to not be gay if she wanted to be accepted by them. Then magically, her same-sex feelings went away:

Disturbingly, nobody in the school district seems to understand what’s problematic with this message. In fact, the infamous ex-gay therapist Richard Cohen, who was permanently expelled from the American Counseling Association in 2002, sits on the PGCPS Health Council for some inexplicable reason. The district’s recently retired supervisor for health education, Betsy Gallun, thinks students deserve to learn about ex-gay therapy and she “feels very badly that it’s coming under scrutiny.” A district spokesman explained that the district has now pulled the video, but only “because there was too much focus on alternative lifestyles.”

Ex-gay therapy has been roundly condemned by all major medical organizations as being at best ineffective and at worst quite harmful. Encouraging young people to reject their own identities is tantamount to shaming them for being who they are. That proponents of this quackery are making decisions in a school district is inexcusable. Talking openly about LGBT issues has been found to make schools safer for LGBT youth, but educators have to actually be informed about what is valid support for sexual diversity and what is blatant anti-gay propaganda.

Today is National Gay-Straight Alliance Day, an opportunity to celebrate the work that GSAs are doing in middle schools, high schools, and on university campuses across the country to create safe learning environments for LGBT students. Increasing the visibility of these 3,000+  groups is essential to ensuring their efforts reach as many students as possible:

Violence and discrimination against LGBT students is the rule, not the exception, in American schools. It is a national disgrace that students feel threatened in school simply because of their real or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity.  While Americans need to know that thousands of students each day go to school or college and endure LGBT violence and harassment, they must also know that GSAs are a tool in helping end violence and that these student groups save lives.

Indeed, research has shown that LGBT students at schools with a GSA hear fewer homophobic marks, experience less victimization, and generally feel safer. Even the mere presence of a club can help mitigate students’ depression and improve the likelihood they’ll succeed in college.

Show your support for GSA Day by standing up against bullying:

Tennessee state Sen. Stacey Campfield (R) is making the press rounds to stump for the new and worsened version of his odious “Don’t Say Gay” bill, which prohibits teachers in grades K-8 from acknowledging the existence of homosexuality and also requires school officials to out gay students to their families. He has already made it clear he believes homosexuality itself is dangerous, and in an interview with TMZ, he doubled down on that absurd belief. After explaining the AIDS epidemic in Africa by claiming that sodomy was more common there among heterosexuals, Campfield went on to compare being gay to using heroin:

TMZ: If they’re going to engage in homosexual acts anyway, why not teach them how to protect themselves from [HIV]?

CAMPFIELD: You know, you could say the same thing about kids who are shooting heroin. We need to show them the best ways to shoot up. No, we don’t. Why do we have to hypersexualize little children? Why can’t we just let little kids be little kids for a while? Why do we have to have little kids be…?

TMZ: Do you believe in sex education period?

CAMPFIELD: …If you can show me where it works, great.

Watch the whole interview (HT: Alvin McEwen):

Sex education actually works when a comprehensive safe sex curriculum is taught, and fails in states that only teach abstinence. Southern states like Mississippi, which has the highest teenage pregnancy rate in the country, are starting to realize this. It’s doubtful, however, that Campfield would be interested in such facts.

Campfield’s understanding of homosexuality is limited to the performance of sex acts. It seems beyond his comprehension that those “little kids” might have same-sex parents. He has no sympathy for those children who might realize at a very young age that they are not the same as all the other kids. Discussing the existence of gay people does nothing to “sexualize” young people, whatever that would even mean. It’s no surprise that the TMZ crew had to wrestle with the idea that Campfield had ever been elected; his understanding of the world around him is severely narrow.

A new study on bullying among young people in England has found that it does, in fact, “get better” for gay, lesbian, and bisexual youth. The study followed over 4,100 teens over the course of seven years and measured the rates at which they were bullied. According to the findings,LGB youth experience higher levels of bullying at age 13-14 than their heterosexual peers, but those rates decline over time at similar rates. At age 18-20, only gay and bi boys still reported distinctly higher rates of bullying and harassment than their heterosexual peers:

The study also found that LGB youth show more emotional distress than heterosexual youth, but that could also be impacted by societal messages. The researchers posit that these results would be similar in the U.S. GLSEN’s studies suggest that bullying starts in elementary schools, escalates through middle school, and decline toward the end of high school, but the rates are problematically high across all age levels for LGB youth.

Tennessee’s so-called ‘Don’t Say Gay‘ bill died with the adjournment of the state assembly last year. But now the measure is back — with new, harsher requirements.

The bill, SB 234, still bars Tennessee teachers from discussing any facet of “non-heterosexual” sexuality with children in grades K-8. But the newest iteration also includes a provision requiring teachers or counselors to inform the parents of some students who identify themselves as LGBT. State Sen. Stacey Campfield (R), who authored the bill the first time around and again introduced it this time, calls out students who might be “at risk,” but leaves the interpretation of that behavior to the teacher:

The general assembly recognizes that certain subjects are particularly sensitive and are, therefore, best explained and discussed within the home. Because of its complex societal, scientific, psychological, and historical implications, human sexuality is one such subject. Human sexuality is best understood by children with sufficient maturity to grasp its complexity and implications [...]

A school counselor, nurse, principal or assistant principal from counseling a student who is engaging in, or who may be at risk of engaging in, behavior injurious to the physical or mental health and well-being of the student or another person; provided, that wherever possible such counseling shall be done in consultation with the student’s parents or legal guardians. Parents or legal guardians of students who receive such counseling shall be notified as soon as practicable that such counseling has occurred

Family rejection is a serious risk for LGBT youth. Kids who are LGBT often face alienation, if not outright abandonment, because they come out. Forty percent of homeless youth are LGBT, and many of them report that the reason they left home was to escape an environment hostile to their sexual orientation. LGBT youth who experience family rejection are at high risk for depression and suicide.

Last June, Utah’s Davis County School District caved to the complaints of 25 parents and removed the book In Our Mothers’ House by Patricia Polacco from general circulation in the elementary school library. The book, which features a family with two moms, was not outright banished, but was held behind the librarian’s desk such that students could not access it without first obtaining permission from their parents. The ACLU filed suit in November, and now the school has come to its senses and returned the book to general circulation. In a letter explaining the decision, the district’s assistant superintendent, Pamela Park, explains that a committee actually had positive things to say about In Our Mothers’ House, including that it will help prevent bullying:

I have considered the written summary and recommendations of the District Reconsideration Committee. I agree with and support the Committee’s conclusions regarding the book as follows:

• “Removing the book completely is not a good option.”
• “We all know many non-traditional families” with students attending our schools.
• “It could help those children in same sex families see their family in a book.”
• “[T]his book teaches acceptance and tolerance.”
• “The book could help prevent bullying of kids from same sex families.”
• “It could be used by a family to discuss the issues . . .”

Parents can still restrict their children from checking out certain books, but that policy would not prevent students from reading the book in the library.

Another wrinkle in this situation is that Utah’s sex education law prevents the use of instructional materials that include “the advocacy of homosexuality.” However, the ACLU argued and the school agreed that library books not incorporated into a curriculum are not covered by the law.

The parents who complained about Polacco’s book may now have to deal with questions about same-sex families. It’s quite likely, however, that they may have already faced such questions given the existence of same-sex families in the school their kids attend. Now, those kids have one extra resource for understanding the diversity that surrounds them.

This week, the Gay-Straight Alliance Network released a new study evaluating the effectiveness of implementing LGBTQ-inclusive curricula in schools. Previous studies have already shown that having an inclusive curriculum helps make schools safer for LGBTQ students, but this study shows that other factors can impact just how effective the inclusive classes can be.

For example, if teachers do not have the proper resources, including professional development, supplemental instructional materials, or updated textbooks, the LGBTQ curriculum was more difficult to implement. This is especially true in the absence of administrative and community support, requiring teachers to shoulder the burden of the materials to implement the lessons. Though California’s FAIR Education Act is now law, schools there have not taken the necessary steps to produce the new resources. In addition, the study found that LGBTQ-inclusive curricula that are implemented school-wide across multiple subject areas had a much bigger impact than curricula introduced in just one class.

The study concludes that more must be done to study the impact and implementation of LGBTQ-inclusive curriculum, recruit a coalition of stakeholders to support that implementation, and provide the tools and resources necessary to do so. Read the full study.