The 200

Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario
You know The International Day of Pink -- celebrated on the second Wednesday of April, since 2007 -- has become successful when you sit down to read the articles condemning it.

And take a look at the people writing them.

And the sources they cite.

This year's celebration was no exception. All the usual suspects were out, encouraging parents to keep their kids at home from school and free of the statist exercise of politically correct indoctrination.

Or, as I call it, facetiously, the great queering of Ontario's school children.



There was this piece in LifeSiteNews: ‘Day of Pink’ teaches school kids to accept homosexuality, critic warns

The title is not entirely wrong, just incomplete. The official Day of Pink website, which operates under The Canadian Centre for Gender and Sexual Diversity (CCGSD), formerly known as Jer's Vision, defines its mission as follows: 
Welcome! The Day of Pink is the International Day against Bullying, Discrimination, Homophobia, Transphobia, and Transmisogyny across the world. We invite everyone to celebrate diversity by wearing a pink shirt and by organizing activities in their workplaces, schools and communities.
Bullying and discrimination and homophobia... You get the picture. Normally, I approach these critiques of Day of Pink or Pride with a sense of equanimity. Their authors believe queer people are sodomites requiring prayer and conversion, lest they recruit others. The part of their argument that grinds my gears is the idea that LGBTQI advocacy dismisses other forms of discrimination and mistreatment. Apparently, all we care about is getting Chaz Bono's pronouns right, but fall silent when other groups are mistreated.

And for this narrow band of hardline religionists, having to share equal rights and oxygen with the LGBTQI community constitutes a form of mistreatment.

Back to the LifeSiteNews article (emphasis mine):
“The Day of Pink is simply an excuse to promote homosexuality,” Gwen Landolt, national vice-president of Real Women of Canada, told LifeSiteNews. 
... 

Landolt called the day’s events “propaganda,” saying it was “one more way to indoctrinate — take advantage of — vulnerable children.” She said parents should be “deeply offended” that schools are forming the values of their children according to the “biases and prejudices” of homosexual activists.

“Children are being indoctrinated into thinking homosexuality is normal, healthy, and virtuous. They are not told anything else, such as how homosexuality is detrimental physically and emotionally,” she said.
Enter The 200.

Lest the reader think the LifeSiteNews article condemning Day of Pink is comprised solely of the opinions of the faithful, the author cites a source:
The American College of Pediatrics, a medical group represented across 47 states, warned parents in 2008 of the dangers children face when homosexuality is promoted in schools. The group stated that the “homosexual lifestyle carries grave health risks” and that it is “premature and may be harmful” to validate a student’s same-sex attraction during the adolescent years.
I did a double-take when I read that, too. Then I did some research and found that The American College of Pediatricians  (ACPeds) is not really a college in any meaningful sense of the word -- i.e. that is is not empowered to provide professional oversight, licensing, or the like, of practitioners. It's merely an organization that "pediatricions and other health care professionals can join." Here's it's mission, from the ACP site:
Mission Of the CollegeThe Mission of the American College of Pediatricians is to enable all children to reach their optimal physical and emotional health and well-being. To this end, we recognize the basic father-mother family unit, within the context of marriage, to be the optimal setting for childhood development, but pledge our support to all children, regardless of their circumstances.
Here's how it got started, according to a post at SPLC:
A professional organization for socially conservative pediatricians and healthcare professionals, the group has taken a number of hard-line positions when it comes to LGBT rights, advocating for a prohibition against adoption rights for same-sex couples and also offering high praise for reparative therapy.
Like NARTH (The National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality), ACPeds was born from an ideological split within a profession. It was founded in 2002 as a protest against the much larger American Academy of Pediatrics’ support for LGBT adoption rights — and that opposition remains central to the group’s identity.
Basically, the founders of ACPeds to took exception to a vote by the AAP membership -- 60,000 strong -- to support the right of same-sex couples to adopt, having demonstrated no ill-effects of queer couples parenting children. The soon-to-be ACPeds announced they were packing their toys and going home. However, there may not be that many pediatricians who are members. The SPLC post continues (emphasis mine):
ACPeds is believed to have no more than 200 members, a tiny fraction of the nearly 60,000 professionals who belong to the American Academy of Pediatrics.
But thanks to its deceptive name — which makes it sound as if it is the mainstream professional organization for pediatricians — ACPeds often serves as a supposedly scientific source for groups pushing utter falsehoods about LGBT people.
Note that the ACP does not provide Continuing Medical Education or a professional journal. Access to other professional programs (Red Book, Prep program) is offered via higher fees, but the AAP or affiliated groups actually provide the services. In other words, if there was no AAP, there would be no continuing education or professional publications.
A hallmark of a profession is the provision of training, certification, and continuing education. The ACP does not none of this independently. The ACP has been around since 2002 and the AAP since 1937. Annually, the AAP spends millions on professional publications and continuing education; the ACP receipts in 2008 was less than $60,000.  The AAP has over 60,000 members, the ACP about 200.
Specialty groups have a long history in the professions and they can have a place, but it is not in the lead. If the ACP disappeared, members of the group would probably miss it, but nothing would change about pediatrics as a medical specialty. The ACP relies on the AAP for the CMEs and research information required to stay in practice.
 The LifeSiteNews article concludes:
Canada’s outspoken conservative commentator Mark Steyn called pink the new “color of conformity.” 
“Nothing says ‘celebrate diversity’ like forcing everyone to dress exactly the same,” he wrote in a National Post piece a few years ago.
Landolt agrees with Steyn, adding that schools are forcing children to conform to a sexual agenda that she called “disturbing.”
Apparently, more disturbing than junk science, peddled by a handful of ideologues. 

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