AMERICAN FAMILY ASSOCIATION OF PENNSYLVANIA

Resources

Home

Statement of Purpose

Current Action Alert ( sign up to receive AFA of PA Action Alerts

Pornography Fight

Pro-Life Issues

News Release
For Immediate Release: February 10, 2009
Contact: Diane Gramley 1.814.437.5355 or 1.814.271.9078

Waynesboro School Board Must Do What is Best For Students

(Harrisburg) -- All students should be provided a safe learning environment, but the formation of a Gay Straight Alliance (GSA) will not aid in that endeavor. It will, rather, create an environment which promotes a lifestyle that is destructive to students, according to the American Family Association of Pennsylvania (AFA of PA), a statewide traditional values organization. The AFA of PA has provided information about the dangers of GSAs to Waynesboro school board members and concerned parents.

The 6-3 vote tonight to allow a GSA at Waynesboro Area High School shows that school board members are not educated on the dangers of permitting such a club. The AFA of PA applauds board members Leland Lemley, Firmadge Crutchfield, and Edward Wilson for their ‘no’ vote. It is the students who are the victims of the majority vote.

“Students who have approached the Waynesboro School Board about forming a GSA are being misled by the Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network (GLSEN) and are not being told all the facts. They are not being told of the dangers of the homosexual lifestyle nor the real intent of GLSEN which is to create political activists,” remarked Diane Gramley, president of the AFA of PA.

Examples of political activism include:

1.) A 2006 GLSEN ‘Healing the Hurt Conference” for high school and college students held in White Plains, NY: The theme of Dani Newsum's keynote address was the 'Ally' concept, getting straight kids to support and fight for homosexual 'rights.' She states that heterosexist- thinking (that all people are born heterosexual) is 'sick, unhealthy, not accepted.' An eyewitness account describes the conference as an agenda that clearly normalizes homosexuality, undermines parental control, and encourages in some subtle and not so subtle ways, rebellion against traditional religious beliefs and governmental laws that do not propagate the homosexual agenda.

2.) October 2005 in Pikesville, MD: The Pikesville’s Gay-Straight Student Alliance organized events at school during GLSEN’s “Ally Week” to encourage gay students to come out and straight students to support them.

3.) February 27^th is GLSEN’s most recently announced “National Day of Action”. It encourages GSAs to observe a TransAction Day to support and advocate for students who identify as transgender.

4.) The Day of Silence held each year in April is another GLSEN “National Day of Action”. During this day members of GSAs remain silent, sometimes covering their mouth with duct tape, to show support for so-called homosexual civil rights.

5.) In November 2005 when the first Transgender Day of Remembrance was held 100 GSAs participated.

In his book One Teacher in Ten, GLSEN founder Kevin Jennings reported the story of a 15-year-old boy named "Brewster" who came to him in 1989 for assistance. Jennings said the boy was having difficulty in school and did not know why. However, during a speech in Iowa five years ago, Jennings stated that "Brewster" had confided to him that he had a sexual encounter with an older man in Boston. Jennings claims he responded to the teen by saying, "I hope you knew to use a condom." The apparent case of sex abuse was not reported to authorities.

Have the organizers of the GSA or its sponsor Nicole Gladieux been told of the dangers of this lifestyle?

According to the Centers for Disease Control, HIV infection and AIDS have had a tremendous effect on men who have sex with men (MSM). MSM accounted for 71% of all HIV infections among male adults and adolescents in 2005. According to the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest homosexual lobby group, those who identity as homosexual only make up 2.9% of the U.S. population.

Homosexual writer Jack Hart wrote, “"Many sexually transmitted diseases (STD's) occur more often among gay men than in the general population. Several factors contribute to this difference: Gay men have the opportunity to engage in sex with more people than do most heterosexual men, and some practices common in the gay community -- especially rimming ["gay" slang for oral-anal stimulation] and anal intercourse [sodomy] -- are highly efficient ways of transmitting disease.."-- Jack Hart, author, Gay Sex: A Manual for Men Who Love Men (Allyson Publications: Boston, 1991), p. 156, in section on "Sexually Transmitted Disease." The writer goes on to write that "most common" sex-transmitted diseases other than HIV confronting homosexual men, including: chlamydia, crab lice, giardiasis, gonorrhea, hepatitis-A and -B, herpes simplex, nongonococcal urethritis, scabies, syphilis, and venereal warts.
Dr. John Diggs has gone into great detail outlining the health dangers to those who engage in homosexual sex in “The Health Risks of Gay Sex”. (Warning graphic descriptions)

“Allowing a GSA does not live up to Section (f) in the Equal Access Act that everyone seems to forget: “maintaining order and discipline on school premises, to protect the well-being of students and faculty. The AFA of PA applauds the three school board members who voted against the formation of a GSA as they had the well-being of students in mind. As school boards continue making these type decisions, it gives parents even more reason to pull their students out of public school,” further noted Gramley. l

# # #