An American Fork High School PTA meeting was canceled hours before it was set to begin Thursday, after officials learned that the discussion would involve gays and lesbians.

Bromley said Merrill attended several planning meetings in previous months, but the item was never brought up. Merrill only found out what the full agenda was after reading an article in a newspaper Thursday about the night's meeting.

"The principal of American Fork High School was not aware of what the agenda of the meeting was," Bromley said. "She thought the meeting was strictly about pornography."

Bromley said the decision to cancel the meeting was supported by the regional and state PTA offices, and it was not made with any agenda in mind. The meeting was not canceled because the school is against talking about same-sex attraction, Bromley said, and all students at every school are accepted.

"We the district, as well as American Fork High School, are not taking a stand," Bromley said.

Steve Graham is a co-founder of Standard of Liberty, a group based in Utah County whose mission includes defending conservative, religion-based social values. Graham was one of the planned speakers at the meeting.

Graham said the meeting would have been ground-breaking because few PTAs are willing to present what he considers the truth about the "gay agenda." Graham said he believes Merrill, the principal, has known for months what would be on the agenda, and she canceled the meeting because she supports gay rights.

"She's got a convenient lapse of memory, that's what it is," he said.

In an e-mail to supporters, Graham said he believed members of the Utah Pride Center had convinced officials to cancel the meeting, and free speech was being abridged as a result.

Yana Walton, director of communications for the Utah Pride Center, a group that advocates protection of gay rights, said she was glad the meeting was canceled because her group was refused the opportunity to present an alternate view. Walton said she would have supported a meeting in which parents had the opportunity to receive information about resources for them and their children.

"We just wanted to be there to offer parents the accurate information," she said.

Had the meeting not been canceled, Walton said, misinformation and hateful speech would have been presented, which would be harmful to students.

Walton said her group wanted to be present at the meeting because of the concern that same-sex attraction was being presented as a social problem. Gay and lesbian students are often subject to hostility at school and at home, Walton said, adding that hostility should not be promoted by an adult group meant to protect them.

"You are labeling children and students," she said. "Gay or not, they are students of that school."

Walton said it is important for parents to have accurate information, rather than fear-based rhetoric. Several parents contacted her office about the meeting, even parents whose children are not gay, she said. The parents were concerned about the message the meeting would send, she said, and she felt that information on Graham's Web site showed the negativity that would have been presented. According to its Web site, Standard of Liberty is "an LDS-oriented educational corporation which exists to raise awareness of sexual activist movements overrunning America's Christian-moral-cultural life and to inspire the public will, families, and individuals to counteract these trends."

"I feel that some of his speech is not compassionate, and I don't think it makes these students feel respected or valued or loved," she said.