'Ex-gay' group booted from conference

A group that believes people with same-sex attractions can abandon homosexuality was evicted from the Virginia Schools Counselors Association annual convention.

PFOX, Parents and Friends of Ex-gays and Gays, said school counselors at the event in Richmond, Va., last week objected to some of its materials and insisted the group leave.

Blogger Warren Throckmorton said PFOX was registered officially as an exhibitor at the conference, held at the Holiday Inn Select Thursday and Friday.

But the counselors association's current president, Tammy Davis, and past-president, Carol Kaffenberger, requested to meet PFOX Director Regina Griggs and insisted the group and its members had to leave.

Griggs said that after some discussion, the school counselors said two of PFOX's brochures were OK, one on bullying and another on teens. But the group, nevertheless, was told to leave because offering only two brochures would not be worth their time.

At that point, the hotel staff intervened and demanded the PFOX people leave, Throckmorton said.

One of the staff began to dismantle the table and police were called in.

PFOX members said they were willing to remove anything deemed offensive but were ushered out anyway.

One of the books the counselors didn't like was a title by leading reparative-therapy researcher Joseph Nicolosi. Another was a story of a transgendered person who warns against sex-change surgery.

Last year, the National Parent-Teacher Association refused PFOX's request to exhibit at its annual convention while welcoming a pro-homosexual activist organization � even inviting it to present a workshop.

PFOX had its application to exhibit rejected because it supports former homosexuals. The National PTA, however, sought the attendance of Parents, Families and Friends of Gays, a pro-homosexual advocacy group that promotes in same-sex marriage.

The National PTA also has allowed "It's Elementary," the homosexual-affirming video for schoolchildren, to exhibit at its conference for the previous three years.

Also last year, PFOX won a decision against the Montgomery County School Board in Maryland, halting the implementation of a sex-education curriculum that would have promoted gay religious organizations over ex-gay ministries and traditional religions.

The judge, in writing his decision, criticized the curriculum for engaging in "viewpoint discrimination" by excluding ex-gay material. The school board also had approved materials published by homosexual advocacy groups that positively portray homosexuality while making negative references to ex-gays.

"The National PTA is discriminating against a class of students and that is just wrong," Griggs said at the time.