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<div class="timestamp">October 14, 2012</div>
<h1>Christian Group Finds Gay Agenda in an Anti-Bullying Day</h1>
<h6 class="byline">By
<span>
<a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/s/kim_severson/index.html" rel="author" title="More Articles by KIM SEVERSON"><span>KIM SEVERSON</span></a></span></h6>
<div id="articleBody">
<p>
On Mix It Up at Lunch Day, schoolchildren around the country are
encouraged to hang out with someone they normally might not speak to.
</p>
<p>
The program, started 11 years ago by the Southern Poverty Law Center and
now in more than 2,500 schools, was intended as a way to break up
cliques and prevent bullying. </p>
<p>
But this year, the American Family Association, a conservative evangelical group, has called the project “a nationwide <a href="http://www.afa.net/Detail.aspx?id=2147527678">push to promote the homosexual lifestyle</a>
in public schools” and is urging parents to keep their children home
from school on Oct. 30, the day most of the schools plan to participate
this year. </p>
<p>
The charges, raised in an e-mail to supporters earlier this month, have
caused a handful of schools to cancel this year’s event and has caught
organizers off guard. </p>
<p>
“I was surprised that they completely lied about what Mix It Up Day is,” said <a title="Ms. Costello’s bio on the law center’s Web site." href="http://www.splcenter.org/who-we-are/staff/maureen-costello">Maureen Costello</a>, the director of the center’s <a title="Mix It Up at Lunch Day page" href="http://www.tolerance.org/mix-it-up/what-is-mix">Teaching Tolerance</a> project, which organizes the program. “It was a cynical, fear-mongering tactic.” </p>
<p>
The swirl around Mix It Up at Lunch Day reflects a deeper battle between
the Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil-rights group founded 41 years
ago in Montgomery, Ala., and the American Family Association, a
Bible-based cultural watchdog organization in Tupelo, Miss. The
association says its mission is to fight what it calls the “increasing
ungodliness” in America. </p>
<p>
The law center recently added the group to its national list of active
hate groups, which also includes neo-Nazis, black separatists and
Holocaust deniers. </p>
<p>
Association leaders, in return, have gone on the offensive, calling the
law center a hate group for oppressing Christian students and claiming
its aim is to shut down groups that oppose homosexuality. </p>
<p>
“The reality is we are not a hate group. We are a truth group,” said <a title="Mr. Fischer’s bio on the American Family Association Web site." href="http://www.afa.net/detail.aspx?id=2147486648">Bryan Fischer</a>, director of issue analysis for the association. “We tell the truth about homosexual behavior.” </p>
<p>
Although the suggested activities for Mix It Up at Lunch Day do not
expressly address gay and lesbian students, the law center itself
promotes equal treatment for gays and lesbians and that philosophy then
informs the school program, he said. </p>
<p>
“Anti-bullying legislation is exactly the same,” Mr. Fischer said. “It’s
just another thinly veiled attempt to promote the homosexual agenda. No
one is in favor of anyone getting bullied for any reason, but these
anti-bullying policies become a mechanism for punishing Christian
students who believe that homosexual behavior is not something that
should be normalized.” </p>
<p>
The program is not about sexual orientation but rather about breaking up
social cliques, which are especially evident in a school cafeteria, Ms.
Costello said. </p>
<p>
In some schools, cliques are socioeconomic. In others they are ethnic or
religious or based on sexual orientation. By giving students a way to
mix with other students, self-imposed social barriers can be broken down
and bullying can be curbed, she said. </p>
<p>
“Many of the targets of bullying are kids who are either gay or are perceived as gay,” she said. </p>
<p>
But the idea that the program is intended as homosexual indoctrination is simply wrong, Ms. Costello added. </p>
<p>
“We’ve become used to the idea of lunatic fringe attacks,” she said, “but this one was complete misrepresentation.” </p>
<p>
Parents who are on the American Family Association e-mail list were
encouraged to keep their children home on that day and to call school
administrators to tell them why. </p>
<p>
By Friday, about 200 schools had canceled, Ms. Costello said. But
exactly why was unclear. Of 20 schools that had canceled and were
contacted by The New York Times, only one chose to comment. </p>
<p>
The Chattahoochee County Education Center in Cusseta, Ga., canceled
because teachers were too busy trying to meet basic state teaching
requirements, said Tabatha Walton, the principal. </p>
<p>
“The decision had nothing to do with taking a position on gay rights,” she said. “We support diversity.” </p>
<p>
Although parents did complain to Kevin Brady, the head of the Avon Grove
Charter School in rural Pennsylvania, the school is still planning to
hold Mix it Up at Lunch Day for its 1,600 students. </p>
<p>
Students will each be assigned a number and then paired up by school
officials. The school has a large population of special-needs students
who can feel isolated and thus benefit greatly from the program, Mr.
Brady said. </p>
<p>
The school started it a few years ago, inspired, in part, by the
shootings at Columbine High School in Colorado and examples of
bully-related violence that surfaced in schools around the country.
</p>
<p>
He said the e-mail sent by the association described a program that had
“absolutely no resemblance to what we do.” Once parents understood how
the program worked, they decided not keep their children home that day,
he said. </p>
<p>
“I think they feel they have been taken for a bit of a ride,” he said. </p>
<div class="authorIdentification">
<p>Robbie Brown contributed reporting from Atlanta.</p> </div>
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