Citing past donations allegedly made by failed mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to pro-equality groups, the antigay parents and spouses group P-FOX on Thursday publicly — and quite seriously — demanded a share of federal bailout money.

In better economic times, the mortgage giants provided aid to countless special interests — liberal and conservative — in order to promote stable homes, foster care and adoption, and youth development. Now the agencies are being bailed out by U.S. taxpayers.

P-FOX offers no home, family, or youth services — in fact, it offers no services at all. The tiny and secretive organization’s annual budget averages less than $30,000. P-FOX refuses to identify its board members (though Family Research Council executive Peter Sprigg is known to have been one of them). P-FOX offers no membership benefits. Yet it is marketed by its few supporters as a group with growing membership (actual numbers are never disclosed) due to “thousands” of ex-gays who leave homosexuality “daily.”

P-FOX destabilizes families by encouraging mothers to harass, stigmatize, and ostracize not only their gay teen-age and adult son, but often the father who is recklessly blamed for a son’s homosexuality. P-FOX opposes granting children access to foster care and adoption at a time when many foster and adoptive parents are single or gay, and few two-parent heterosexual households are willing to accept minority or troubled children. Instead of giving children good homes, P-FOX persistently attempts to halt popular youth-development and comprehensive sex-education programs in Maryland and Virginia public schools.

According to Thursday’s press release,

Regina Griggs, executive director of Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays & Gays (PFOX), stated, “We support individuals’ rights to self-determination. We support families who have homosexual loved ones. We support those who have come out of homosexuality. We provide outreach and educate teens on same-sex attractions.”

To Freddie and Fannie, Griggs says, “We would like equal money. We want the same financial opportunity that gay groups enjoy.”

The first paragraph is blatantly inaccurate.

Since 1996, I have observed P-FOX supporting antigay discrimination, opposing factual sex-education and balanced presentations of religious viewpoints regarding homosexuality, and opposing legislative action against antigay murders and violent assaults.

• These activities do not, in any sane or logical fashion, qualify as support for “individuals’ rights to self-determination.” P-FOX redefines “self-determination” in terms of the ex-gay myth that people can choose their sexual orientation at any time. P-FOX supports a choice to deny and suppress one’s orientation, but not a choice to be sexually and spiritually honest.
• Furthermore, P-FOX’s online parental discussion groups regrettably do not “support families who have homosexual loved ones.” Despite criticism and high turnover, these e-mail and web-based forums cheer parents who angrily blame their spouses and schools — both for the fact that their teen and adult children are gay, and for the failure of ex-gay tactics to “change” sexual orientation.
• P-FOX offers no measurable support to “those who have come out of homosexuality.” That chore is handled (poorly, given its political distractions) by Exodus International.
• P-FOX does not “educate teens on same-sex attractions.” P-FOX tells teen-agers that their peers choose to be immoral, misinforms teen-agers about the pre-natal and early-life factors that determine sexual orientation, and warns antigay teen-agers and faculty that allowing any freedom of speech among gay teen-agers — or opposing bullying that specifically targets gay teen-agers — threatens their own freedom.