High school PTA
rejects PFLAG ad

A Utah high school's Parent-Teacher Association is deliberating with the National PTA over the inclusion of an ad from a gay family group. The advocacy group Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays placed an advertisement in the National PTA magazine, highlighting its scholarship program.

According to the Salt Lake Tribune, Bountiful High School PTA's letter to the national organization says that the ad promotes "alternative lifestyles" to the nation's youths. The ad states that parents must "stand up for and celebrate the innateness of biological gender and the decency and tradition of heterosexual relationships." The letter was posted on the school's Web site and then removed after principal Ryck Astle realized it was up, according to the article.

Anna Weselak, president of the National PTA, told the Salt Lake Tribune that the organization focuses more on children than reflecting political points of view.

"We make it very clear we work with and partner with a lot of organizations and it doesn't mean we're endorsing them at all," Weselak said in the article. "I know there are PTAs who may not agree with everything we do as a national organization, but it's a very big country and there's a lot of issues we need to deal with."

Bountiful's PTA president, Rose Marie Murray, told the Tribune that she did not want to come across as condemning. "But we do not support or encourage the promotion, the advertising, the encouraging of alternative lifestyles," she said.

PFLAG's national communications director said the purpose of the ad was not to spread an agenda but instead to promote the scholarship to a base of parents and teachers. (The Advocate)