PFOX’s attempt to make the Walt Disney Company include ex-gays in its anti-discrimination policy is not about sexual orientation – it is about ideology.

If it were about sexual orientation, PFOX would have to concede that ex-gays are already protected. Are ex-gays same-sex attracted? Then they are homosexual, and are therefore protected. Have they overcome same-sex attractions to become opposite-sex attracted? Then they are heterosexual, and are therefore protected. Do they now have heterosexual relationships? Marriages? Then they have the same rights as every other person in a heterosexual relationship or marriage. Do they have no sexual relationships at all? Then they have the same rights as every other celibate person.

What unique attraction or relationship is the ex-gay trying to protect by insisting he be included in a sexual orientation policy?

The fiercely anti-gay PFOX complains thus:

Disney’s exclusion of ex-gays from its sexual orientation policy and programs reinforces the second-class status of ex-gays, and contributes to the negative perceptions and discrimination against former homosexuals.  Disney’s exclusion also disregards diversity and the basic human right to dignity and self-determination.  Adding ex-gays to Disney’s sexual orientation policy and programs, which already include gays and bisexuals, will increase diversity, assure equality in the workplace, and be inexpensive for the Company to implement.

PFOX claims that ex-gays are victims of intolerance, discrimination, unfair treatment and hostility. It even claims to have “documented numerous incidents of intolerance against the ex-gay community.” But it is blind at best, disingenuous at worst to say that hostility or intolerance towards ex-gays is due to their sexual orientation. It is about ideology. In the public square, the ex-gay message is rarely heard without accompanying slander of gays and their relationships. If indeed this is a sexual orientation, it is a tragedy – not to mention an anomaly – that it is an orientation defined overwhelmingly by hatred of and opposition to another sexual orientation.

As a gay man, I am oriented primarily towards other men. My sexuality has nothing to do with opposing other people’s sexuality. I do not need to destroy heterosexuality to be able to love someone of my own gender. I do not need to slander straight people in order to affirm my own orientation.

Yet this novel ex-gay “orientation” proposed by PFOX rarely exists without setting itself explicitly in opposition to the lives, loves and relationship of gay men and women.

It is obvious that PFOX’s bid for protection is about the ex-gay ideology, not an orientation. With so little substance, this campaign is little more than a transparent ploy for publicity for a dying and increasingly desperate ex-gay movement.

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