The antigay parents group P-FOX is demanding that the Walt Disney Company offer special protection for non-existent ex-gay employees who are already protected, in any event, under existing antidiscrimination policy covering sexual orientation.

According to TowleRoad, P-FOX also falsely claims (again) that the Superior Court of the District of Columbia ruled that “former homosexuals are a protected class that must be recognized under sexual orientation non-discrimination laws.”

In fact, the city court merely held that mutability of characteristics may not be used under the city’s Human Rights Act as a pretense exclude persons from protection under the city law. The ruling has no effect outside Washington, D.C., due to the extreme breadth of that city’s antidiscrimination law.

In an article at ChristianExaminer.com, ex-gay activist Greg Quinlan asserts that one cannot be gay, monogamous, and Christian; repeats his unproven claim to have volunteered for the Human Rights Campaign; and projects his own past “shallow, lust-filled and immature” lifestyle onto all sexually honest persons living today.

Quinlan says these things during a visit to San Diego for the National Education Association’ convention on behalf of the antigay parents’ group P-FOX and its “Ex-Gay Educators’ Caucus.” He also consults for the New Jersey Family Policy Council, an affiliate of Focus on the Family. (P-FOX recently gave up its affiliation with Exodus International.)

Quinlan is pushing for access to teachers in an effort to oppose the union’ push for same-sex marriage rights to ease the social and economic burden on children of gay couples, and the union’s push for a curriculum that opposes antigay stereotypes and bullying.

Quinlan hopes to change public schools’ curricula by opposing comprehensive sex education and by changing science lessons so that they conform to the ex-gay myths of P-FOX mentors Richard Cohen and NARTH.

He blames his own past homosexual behavior on an “abusive ‘Archie Bunker-type’ father,” followed by an inability to reconcile his sexual behavior with his faith and identity in a healthy and responsible fashion.

Instead of life improving at home, the father’ abuse toward him worsened. Eventually he filled his desperate need for affection at the hands of a young teen boy who introduced him to sex. Quinlan said he became a willing molestation victim.

Unfortunately, Quinlan now works to deny gay youths the safe and affirming support that might have protected him from “willing molestation” at the hands of an older boy.

Because his own same-sex attractions allegedly faded during counseling for his father’s abuse, Quinlan campaigns to coerce sexual change in persons whose same-sex orientation is not derived from environmental factors such as abuse or parental neglect.

For a trend toward increasing sexual honesty among gay youths in the schools, Quinlan blames Christians who are not emphatic enough in silencing gay youth and coercing change.

“We’ve allowed this to happen,” he said. “There are so many Secret Service Christians who need to come out of the closet, but we also need to know how to argue and debate persuasively. This conspiracy and its wheel have been around for decades.”

Quinlan has yet to demonstrate that he can argue and debate persuasively, however — his past efforts have been hindered by anger, stereotypes, strawman arguments, and disrespect for those who are sexually honest. Are we now to believe that a kinder, gentler Greg Quinlan is emerging?

Addendum: Almost one year after Quinlan was caught lying about mainstream professional mental-health consensus regarding ex-gay therapy, and in particular lying about the human-genome research of Dr. Francis Collins, Good As You noted last week that Quinlan is repeating the same lies in order to rationalize his opposition to federal legislation that would equalize punishment for antigay hate crimes.

For the decade since it was co-founded by the religious-rightist Family Research Council, Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays has criticized the more mainstream Parents, Family and Friends of Lesbians and Gays because P-FLAG’s parents love their children unconditionally — and because P-FLAG parents refrain from bullying and cajoling their teen and adult children into seeking discredited forms of “therapy” from disgraced ex-gay therapists such as longtime P-FOX chairman Richard Cohen.

P-FOX encourages parents to blame one another — not biology — for their children’s sexual orientation. The organization warns its antigay parents (few of whom have ex-gay children) against trusting mainstream mental-health professionals to treat what is often the underlying cause of their children’s struggles: Depression and low self-esteem. Depression is viewed instead as a tool to make people unhappy enough with themselves to submit to abusive ex-gay programs.

P-FOX also dissuades parents from listening to their teen and adult children who have survived spiritual and emotional abuse under unprofessional and judgmental ex-gay counselors. Instead, P-FOX encourages parents to make life more difficult for ex-gay survivors, in the hope that escalating ostracism from family will force the survivor to resubmit to ex-gay abuse.

Some of these tactics are evident in P-FOX’s latest stunt: An article written by Jeanette Bakke, the antigay mother of former ex-gay Christine Bakke. Christine is co-founder of Beyond Ex-Gay, a support group for survivors of ex-gay abuse.

The mother protects P-FOX readers from exposure to her daughter’s experiences, by refraining from linking to Bakke’s extensive online writing and support work for survivors. Instead, she writes of her own self-pity and of her prayers that her “lost” daughter will one day be “found” by the source of the family’s spiritual abuse.

Christine is much more factual and objective in her response. (Read More)

Chris Delaney, ex-gay activist and poster boy for P-FOX billboards, admitted last month to the Chattanooga Times Free Press that, as a “gay” man, he sought male affirmation — not sex.

The apparent fact that he did not experience a lifelong, predominant, and unvarying sexual attraction to men — and that he wasted his “gay” years in bars instead of pursuing constructive relationships and hobbies — hasn’t stopped Delaney from boasting for 12 years that he achieved freedom from homosexuality.

His claim is ironic. If anything, he is more deeply addicted to the subject than when he claimed to be gay.

For most of this decade, his picture has appeared on billboards to aid P-FOX in its ongoing campaign to divide families and blame parents for their children’s predominant and unchanging same-sex attraction.

In November, Delaney joined other ex-gay activists and antigay church leaders to strategize against equality and freedom in Tennessee.

And last week, Delaney revealed to OneNewsNow that he is willing to distort science and smear researchers who have discovered signs of a naturally occurring, biological predisposition to same-gender attraction. (Read More)

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.