(A very heavily made-up Greg Quinlan, left)

Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays sent out, yet another, expensive media release across the wire service today. It was its latest attack on the Walt Disney Company for rejecting a nutty shareholders resolution to include so-called ex-gays in its non-discrimination policy.

Of course, PFOX’s real goal is:

1) A publicity stunt to make the organization look like it is actually doing something

2) A slippery attempt to water-down non-discrimination laws and policies.

Here is a quick guide to the nonsense spewed by PFOX on its weird media release and then a glimpse of reality:

PFOX Claim: Greg Quinlan, a PFOX spokesperson said, “Ex-gays remain closeted because they are not protected by diversity policies.  Employees who support the ex-gay community are also not welcome to express their views.”

Reality: Ex-Gays are not closeted. They simply do not exist. Washington’s City Paper asked PFOX to identify real, live ex-gays in DC – one of this nation’s largest metro areas, and they were unable to do so. It is extremely difficult to find people to come forward who are not “ex-gay” for pay. That is why we keep hearing Quinlan’s name. He is one of the few examples they have and he has made a living off this gig. PFOX is so desperate for examples that they use Quinlan despite the fact he is an unrepentant sinner, due to his recent divorce.  While the Bible is not very clear on homosexuality, it is very clear on divorce.

PFOX Claim: “How can HRC demand gay equality when it refuses to extend equality to others?” asked Quinlan.

Reality: PFOX has opposed every single law or policy that offers equality to LGBT people. So, to paraphrase Quinlan, how can PFOX ask for equality? (Although they already have legal protection since ex-gays are presumably heterosexual)

PFOX’s Claim: “Disney’s equality index score is -0- for ex-gays and their supporters.”

Reality: PFOX and other ex-gay groups do not have an equality score index.

PFOX’s Claim: Disney should treat former homosexuals with the same respect and benefits its gives to homosexuals.”

Reality: If PFOX can’t find “former homosexuals” who are not paid, political operatives, how do they expect Disney to do so? And, once again, if so-called ex-gays exist they are now heterosexual, thus protected by non-discrimination laws and policies. What PFOX is essentially saying is that ex-gays do not really exist and are not heterosexual. It is a very incongruous, convoluted message that makes no sense. PFOX has been pushing this insane strategy for several years and it has gone nowhere. Are these people insane?

PFOX Claim: “Last week HRC celebrated the first gay marriages in Washington DC, our nation’s capital.  But there is one victory HRC did not celebrate.  And that’s the DC Superior Court’s ruling that ex-gays are a legally protected class under the D.C. Human Rights Act.”

Reality: The court did not say that ex-gays constitute an explicitly protected class. The court reversed an earlier ruling that ex-gays are *not* a protected class, but it did not state that they *are* a protected class in D.C.

The court rationalized that, on the basis of the city’s unusually expansive Human Rights Act which defines sexual orientation by “preference or practice,” an ex-gay might hypothetically seek protection on the basis of a mutable decision not to “practice” homosexuality anymore. However, the court found that no such discrimination had occurred in the case of the National Education Association.

Has PFOX failed to notice it is spinning its wheels and not accomplishing anything? They can lie and spin the facts – but they will never get anywhere. Of course, what else can one expect from Greg Quinlan. He began his “ex-gay” career by claiming he had once been a part of the Human Rights Campaign.

When I worked at HRC, not one person had ever heard of Quinlan.  So, much for honesty and integrity. I also wonder why PFOX’s Executive Director Regina Griggs has no pictures. Is she ashamed of her work?

When Family Research Council spokesman Peter Sprigg told MSNBC on Tuesday that LGBT people should be thrown in prison for their alleged private behavior, it escaped the attention of the news media that Sprigg is also a board member and spokesman for an FRC offshoot called Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays, which distributes antigay propaganda in public schools.

Sprigg is also one of the few local citizens to serve on a citizens’ advisory board for Montgomery County Public Schools in Washington, D.C.’s Maryland suburbs.

Just two days after Sprigg proudly declared that LGBT people of all ages should be imprisoned, the school district sent students home with PFOX brochures. The brochures tell students that if they are same-sex attracted, it is OK to be of two minds, to conceal one’s attractions from friends and family, to be dishonest, and proclaim one’s so-called heterosexuality. And while PFOX opposes any right to self-determination for persons who wish to be honest about their orientation, it doesn’t acknowledge this in the brochures; instead, PFOX portrays students who seek to be sexually honest and free from bullying as if they are oppressing those students wish to hide in shame and to bully or imprison others.

Neither the literature nor the school district tell students any of the following truths: (Read More)

Antigay activist Ruth Jacobs is a veritable pornographer for Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and for Christian-Right outfits in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C.

Her testimonies against comprehensive sex education and transgender access to public facilities routinely consist of graphic and one-sided descriptions of sex acts. Her kinky speeches are purposely entered into the public record in order to fill the minds of taxpayers, library visitors, churchgoers, and elected officials with dirty thoughts and sex-starved antigay fantasies instead of uplifting public dialogue about public health, human dignity, freedom, and lifelong love between two people. Jacobs also refers to the supposed rights of unnamed, absent, and frankly non-existent “ex-transgender” and “ex-gay” people to be free from the existence of the real gay and transgender people who testify.

See for yourself — but don’t watch this from your workplace:

The Genocide for Jesus blog has helpfully transcribed her entire appearance at a District of Columbia hearing on marriage for the District’s gay couples.

Of particular note, according to the blog:

During a questioning period, she admitted to Council chair Phil Mendelson that she had no evidence of her claims of a connection between same-sex marriage and HIV infection. Councilman David Catania asked her what gay male sex had to do with lesbians and marriage, especially since lesbians have the lowest rate of HIV infection. Jacobs became flustered and said she wasn’t there to talk about that fact.

Janet Boynes Ministry is challenging Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays (PFOX) as an organization “ministering” to parents who have GLBT children. According to Boynes’ newsletter:

“Janet Boynes Ministries is pleased to launch our new blog, Parents Reaching Parents, to assist parents in finding support from other parents in the midst of this journey. May this blog be a blessing to you.”

I can’t blame Boynes for wanting to supplant PFOX as the primary organization alienating parents from their GLBT children. PFOX is basically a sham group that serves as a front for  anti-gay legal organizations to sue people or schools. It has attracted bizarre activists, such as Richard Cohen, Anthony Falzarano and Greg Quinlan, who represent about the worst faces the ex-gay industry can put forth.

While Boynes is friendly and well intentioned, she is terribly misguided and will most certainly separate parents from their kids. This is especially sad as we approach the holiday season, when loving families should be together, not divided and driven apart because of religious extremism.

According to Boynes’ website:

Janet Boynes Ministries (JBM) is a non-denominational outreach dedicated to evangelism by preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ. JBM will also minister to individuals who question their sexuality or who wish to leave homosexuality. JBM will seek to inform and challenge churches and society about the issues surrounding sexuality and teach how to minister to the homosexual community. These goals will be accomplished through promotion of family values, public speaking events, distribution of media, and coordination with individuals, churches, ministries, and organizations.

Just what America needs – yet another professional “ex-gay” seeking the limelight and peddling false tales of change for profit. I suppose it is a good gig while it lasts – until the almost inevitable “fall”. But, I suppose this is an improvement over PFOX, the most reprehensible and creepy organization in the nation.

The Southern Poverty Law Center has identified 12 anti-gay hate groups in the United States: Hate groups are organizations that “go beyond mere disagreement with homosexuality by subjecting gays and lesbians to campaigns of personal vilification.” Among the hate groups are Peter LaBarbera’s former project the Illinois Family Institute; Lou Sheldon’s Traditional Values Coalition; and several organizations linked to Exodus ally, Holocaust revisionist, and ex-gay activist Scott Lively.

Mission America, the Ohio-based nameplate for antigay activist Linda Harvey, may be envious: It’s not listed. That may be one reason why Harvey — aided by the antigay parent group Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays, according to Ex-Gay Watch — is urging antigay conservatives to write to the SPLC and demand that California supporters of open campaign-donation records be collectively branded a hate group.

Why is Mission America equating open records with hate? Not because of any actual violence or harassment of campaign donors: There hasn’t been any.

Perhaps, then, Mission America is simply hopping on the bandwagon of ProtectMarriage.com, a coalition of wealthy, out-of-state, antifamily religious-rightists who want their identities — and their antigay extremism — kept secret from California voters. Exodus International is among the coalition’s endorsers.

There’s little chance of California open-records laws being overturned, and no actual evidence that the records have been used to promote violence of any kind against members of the antigay, antifamily coalition. So the objective of P-FOX and Mission America may be twofold:

1. Deflect their supporters’ attention from their organizations’ association with certified hate groups
2. Gain inclusion in future editions of SPLC’s hate-group list, so that Mission America — a little-known outfit among the giants of the religious right — may claim victimhood at the hands of those who warn America against defamation and vilification done in the name of religion

Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays (PFOX) is teaming up with various anti-gay legal groups to intimidate GLBT campus organizations in high schools, colleges and universities. They are threatening to sue if these organizations don’t distribute the bizarre theories of Richard Cohen.

It is hard to believe, but Cohen is the former President of PFOX. They still promote his books and training sessions. And, if you ask for a speaker – they will likely send you Mr. Cohen – who was expelled for life from the American Counseling Association. If PFOX tries to get into your school, simply show administrators this clip of Cohen from the documentary, “Chasing the Devil.” It is clear, based on this clip – and his record – that disseminating PFOX’s material may put students at risk. Any responsible school that protects its students will not allow PFOX near its campus.

Addendum: PFOX last summer was accused by two different scientific research teams of distorting their research.

One week ago, TruthWinsOut.org published exclusive comments by Gary Remafedi, M.D., M.P.H., a professor of pediatrics at the University of Minnesota, who said the “ex-gay” organization PFOX distorted his research findings:

“My work has been cited by PFOX in response to a Washington Post article on gay-straight alliances (GSA),” wrote Dr. Remafedi. “PFOX misuses one of my studies on suicide attempts in gay youth to argue that people should not identify their sexual orientation at young ages. Our findings do not support the contention that young people choose their identity or the timing of events in identity formation. Nor is there any evidence that the availability of GSAs influences those developmental processes.”

Today, Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays was caught in another lie by Ed Brayton of ScienceBlogs.com.

Brayton (pictured) noticed that, in an article posted by the American Family Association’s OneNewsNow propaganda service in the wee hours of July 26, PFOX executive director Regina Griggs said: “Over 70 percent of young kids 13- to 24-years-old, men having sex with men, are now HIV-positive.”

Brayton, who is heterosexual, crunches the numbers from current federal Centers for Disease Control research on youth sexual health, and finds that approximately 3.1 percent of men aged 13 to 24, who have sex with men, are HIV-positive. In a worst-case scenario, Brayton finds that 5 percent of MSM in this age group might be HIV-positive.

Brayton comments:

[Griggs] also makes the ridiculous claim that teenagers can’t self-identify as straight or gay. Has she never been a teenager? I knew I was straight the moment I hit puberty and started feeling sexually attracted to girls. Every gay man I know says the exact same thing about feeling sexually attracted to boys at the same time. There wasn’t any confusion about it, you just are what you are, no choice involved.

Hat tip: Box Turtle Bulletin

Dr. Gary Remafedi Says ‘Ex-Gay’ Group Manipulated His Study And Should Immediately Take The Distortions Off Its Website

NEW YORK – TruthWinsOut.org published exclusive comments today by Gary Remafedi, M.D., M.P.H., a professor of pediatrics at the University of Minnesota, who claimed the “ex-gay” organization PFOX distorted his research findings.

On its website, PFOX expressed its displeasure with The Washington Post for publishing what it called “a sympathetic article about a 15-year-old boy named Saro who described his homosexual feelings and how Gay Straight Alliance student clubs help such gay teens to deal with discrimination and bullying in high school and middle school.”

“What the article failed to describe,” said PFOX Executive Director Regina Griggs, “is the danger of young sexually confused teens self-identifying as gays at an early age. Research has shown that the risk of suicide decreases by 20% each year that a person delays homosexual or bisexual self-labeling.* Early self-identification is dangerous to kids.”

Dr. Remafedi’s study was the one cited by PFOX to back their unfounded conclusions. Today, Dr. Reamafedi released the following comments to Truth Wins Out:

“My work has been cited by PFOX in response to a Washington Post article on gay-straight alliances (GSA),” wrote Dr. Remafedi. “PFOX misuses one of my studies on suicide attempts in gay youth to argue that people should not identify their sexual orientation at young ages. Our findings do not support the contention that young people choose their identity or the timing of events in identity formation. Nor is there any evidence that the availability of GSAs influences those developmental processes.” (Read More)