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Endorsing only tolerance

At a meeting of PFLAG, a group recently accused of promoting pedophilia, the members - moms and dads - say their only agenda is supporting their gay sons and daughters.

By MIKE WILSON
Published March 17, 2005

[Times photo: John Pendygraft]

Kathy Miller, 58, hugs her son Mark, 24, at Tampa International Airport recently before he boarded a plane to return to law school in New Jersey. Kathy is the president of the Pinellas chapter of Parents, Families & Friends of Lesbians and Gays. Mark is gay.

	Cecilia Burke responds As our PFLAG story was about to go to press, Juvenile Welfare Board member Cecilia Burke called to give her side of things.

ST. PETERSBURG - The red-haired man and his wife sat side by side, touching hands. They had come, the man said, because they want to be better supporters of their son, who had sent them a surprising e-mail from college.

Mom, Dad: I'm gay.

Betsy Allen, who had been to many of these meetings, has five children, two gay and three straight. She had a simple message for parents: "Love your kids."

Some people at Saturday's meeting of PFLAG - Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays - had come purely out of indignation. Janet Diehl, who was at her first meeting, thought it was so important to be there that she had spent $20 for a cab even though she is on disability and money is tight.

Emma Axtell, another first-timer, laid out the $25 membership fee because she wanted to stand up for her gay friends.

"Just having your name on the membership roll would say there's nothing wrong with being gay," she told the group.

And all 19 people at Saffron's restaurant expressed anger or bewilderment at PFLAG's recent notoriety. After all, this was the first meeting of the Pinellas chapter since the group had been accused of endorsing pedophilia.

It started when Cecilia Burke, a member of Pinellas' Juvenile Welfare Board, wrote a memo criticizing the board's director for maintaining a relationship with PFLAG and another group, the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network.

The Juvenile Welfare Board spends about $42-million in property tax money each year on programs to help children. PFLAG members have gone before the board's Sexual Minority Youth Committee to tell their stories.

The board also hands out literature supplied by PFLAG. The pamphlets talk about HIV and AIDS and tell kids that being gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgendered is "as natural as being straight," which is the position of American Psychological Association.

Burke criticized the board's involvement with PFLAG and GLSEN, saying they "endorse unhealthy sexual practices among youth, including sex between underage youth and adults."

This month, the organizations' national offices called Burke's comments "misinformed, hurtful and unjustified." The groups demanded a public apology but haven't gotten one. The controversy is about what kind of sex young people are having, and with whom. But the subject of sex never really came up at Saturday's PFLAG meeting.

Instead, people talked about what it's like to have gay children (meaning teenagers or adult children). They talked about how confused they felt when their children came out - even though they always knew their kids were vaguely "different." They talked about how miserable their kids were in high school.

And they all agreed that it's scary to have a gay child at a time when gay people are, as they see it, under attack.

"You think things are okay, and then you hear the remarks from the Juvenile Welfare Board," PFLAG president Kathy Miller said. "And you realize, things are never going to be 100 percent okay."

Pinellas' PFLAG meetings usually don't have a long agenda. People just take turns telling their stories.

Kathy Miller got things started. She was at the meeting with her husband, her mother, her daughter and her 24-year-old son, Mark, a Rutgers University law student in town on spring break.

"I'm here," she said, "because of Mark."

She told the group that Mark struggled in high school, where he was harassed for "acting gay." Finally, when he was 17, he came out to her during a car ride.

She told him she would always love him, no matter what. Then she asked him if he wanted to see a counselor just to help him think things through.

No, he said, do you?

Soon after, she went to her first meeting of PFLAG. For the first time, she took it personally when people said bad things about homosexuals.

"All of a sudden, they're talking about your child," she said. She said she hoped that someday Burke "can meet us and hear our stories, because she's getting misinformation for sure."

One after another they spoke. Jim Loveland, a "30-something" man who is studying to be a nurse, said he knew he was gay by the time he was 11, but denied it until he was an adult. "I was incredibly homophobic of myself," he said. His parents came to a PFLAG meeting with him once but still aren't sure what to make of him, he said.

Rita Rose's son Kevin came out to her at Burger King. Her other son, Jonathan, claimed he had always known Kevin was gay because he was so fond of The Nutcracker. Everyone laughed when Rose told that story.

The red-haired man - he didn't want his name in the paper - said he often hears the argument that people become gay after being "recruited" by other homosexuals. He can't understand that. He said his son knew he was gay long before he ever met another gay person.

"I'm not sure he's had a gay relationship yet, and he just graduated from college," the man said.

Kathy Fink broke the news that her best friend, whom many people at the meeting had heard about, recently died of AIDS. She was the only person to whom he had been completely out of the closet. His family surely knew he was gay, but denies it even now, she said.

Fink said she'll keep coming to PFLAG because it is "a safe place to talk."

Karen Fireman, who has a gay son, said she recently wrote him a letter thanking him for teaching her acceptance and tolerance. For the first time all morning, everyone applauded.

The talk got political when Janet Diehl mentioned President Bush's opposition to gay marriage. She used the word "nincompoops" to describe the people in the administration.

Kathy Miller quickly let her know that PFLAG isn't allowed to endorse candidates because it's a nonprofit. And Jim Loveland pointed out that "we do have allies among the Republicans - and enemies among the Democrats."

The last to speak was Terry Miller, Mark's father, who came home exhausted from a business trip seven years ago, dropped his bags in the kitchen, and was told his son is gay. He was okay with it - maybe not instantly, but almost.

He said he had always thought of Mark as "one of the most moral, ethical, sincere, honest guys I know," and still does.

-- Mike Wilson can be reached at 727 892-2924 or mike@sptimes.com

To reach the Pinellas chapter of PFLAG, call 727 345-7688 or e-mail pflag@tampabay.rr.com For information on other Florida chapters, click on www.pflag.org

[Last modified March 16, 2005, 17:05:04]