Contact: Wayne Besen, Executive Director
Phone: 917-691-5118
E-Mail: wbesen@truthwinsout.org
PFOX’s Greg Quinlan Compounds Original Defamation With Second Act of Defamation
Burlington, Vt. – Truth Wins Out announced today that it intends to launch a defamation lawsuit against Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays (PFOX) as soon as possible. The lawsuit is a result of PFOX President Greg Quinlan’s comments on a Washington, DC television show claiming that TWO Executive Director, Wayne Besen, tried to have him murdered.
“We are preparing a lawsuit and PFOX will soon realize that this is no bluff,” said TWO’s Executive Director Wayne Besen. “PFOX will not be able to pray away this lawsuit any more than they can pray away the gay. The outcome of this disturbing matter will be settled in a court of law.”
On October 7, 2011 Quinlan was interviewed on NewsPlus with Mark Segraves (WDCW-TV). At the 10:38 mark of the show, Quinlan (pictured) fabricates an alleged hit on his life. According to Quinlan:
“Truth Wins Out if you look further, including Wayne Besen. He’s asked for people, you know, somebody needs to run Greg over. He needs to be hit with a bus. Somebody should inject him with AIDS. Those are the things that Wayne Besen and Truth Wins Out says about me. That’s pretty hateful rhetoric.”
TWO sent PFOX a letter last week giving them an opportunity to apologize for their smear campaign. Unfortunately, instead of taking the high road and expressing regret for making false and misleading statements, Quinlan angrily lashed out in today’s statement:
“Once I was able to stop laughing and realized that the letter wasn’t intended to be parody, I thought: Okay; Wayno wants a response to his list of comical demands? Here’s my formal response: Grow up…So, Wayne, if you really feel you must waste money you could be using to bash ex-gays, bully Christian churchgoers and spread the lie that people who are trapped in unwanted homosexuality can never escape it, I say knock yourself out. We’re happy to countersue and expose the hundreds of smears you and TWO have lodged against me and other pro-family advocates. Smears that actually amount todefamation. Little man, I’m calling your bluff.”
In Quinlan’s bizarre response, he defended his original character assassination with a second calumny that will be included in the defamation lawsuit. PFOX’s President falsely claimed that Besen was fired from the Human Rights Campaign, where he served as Deputy Director of Communications from 1998-2003.
“In reality, I left HRC after five years on my own volition to take a new job,” said TWO’s Besen. “The year I left I received a raise, and on my final day at HRC they threw me a party. That Quinlan would publicly lie about something so easily provable is incredibly reckless and irresponsible.”
Quinlan also lied when he claimed: “First of all, Besen blatantly mischaracterized what I actually said on the program, claiming that I suggested he solicited my assassination. This is a bald-faced lie and Besen knows it. The truth is that Besen once said to me in a private conversation that someone should run me over with a bus or inject me with AIDS. Did I think he was serious? No. I knew it was just Wayne being Wayne; one part bluster, two parts hyperbole and three parts hot air.”
“This alleged conversation never occurred and these words were never spoken,” said Besen. “As for Quinlan’s clear statements being ‘mischaracterized,’ people can watch the show and see with their own eyes that Quinlan is being less than honest. I challenge Quinlan to a lie detector test to see who is telling the truth. I seriously doubt he is willing to take one, while I am.”
“Basically, everything Quinlan said in his response was untrue and TWO will see PFOX in court,” added Besen.
Obviously, such a lawsuit is out of budget — so please consider a tax-deductible contribution to help us fight PFOX’s lies.
Contact: Wayne Besen, Executive Director
Phone: 917-691-5118
E-Mail: wbesen@truthwinsout.org
TWO Demands ‘Ex-Gay’ Group Apologize For Defamatory Remarks Within Five Days Or Face Legal Action
PFOX President Greg Quinlan’s Fabricated Tale Claiming TWO Tried to Have Him Murdered is Unconscionable and Unacceptable, Says TWO
Burlington, Vt. – Truth Wins Out sent a letter to Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays today sternly warning PFOX that it would face legal consequences if it did not publicly apologize within five days for defaming TWO Executive Director Wayne Besen. The letter from Virginia attorney Michael Hamar outlined four concrete demands that PFOX would have to satisfy to avoid having the matter settled in a court of law.
On October 7, 2011 Quinlan was interviewed on News-Plus with Mark Segraves (WDCW-TV). At the 10:38 mark of the show, Quinlan (pictured) fabricates an alleged hit on his life. According to Quinlan:
“Truth Wins Out if you look further, including Wayne Besen. He’s asked for people, you know, somebody needs to run Greg over. He needs to be hit with a bus. Somebody should inject him with AIDS. Those are the things that Wayne Besen and Truth Wins Out says about me. That’s pretty hateful rhetoric.”
“Greg Quinlan deliberately and maliciously fabricated a story with the sole purpose of smearing Truth Wins Out and damaging my reputation,” said Truth Wins Out Executive Director Wayne Besen. “These defamatory actions are unconscionable, unacceptable, and I refuse to let these vicious lies go unanswered.”
Hamar sent his letter to PFOX outlining the necessary steps to ameliorate the situation:
1. A written retraction be issued by Gregory Quinlan on PFOX letterhead admitting he fabricated the incident(s) and made untrue statements during the television interview. The retraction must be signed by PFOX’s Executive Director Regina Griggs and Mr. Quinlan.
2. A YouTube video of Mr. Quinlan apologizing for the false and defamatory statements.
3. Mr. Quinlan will offer to immediately make an apology on the very television show in which the defamatory statements about Mr. Besen were made.
4. PFOX will send out a press release, first approved by Mr. Besen, announcing the apology.
“These terms must be accepted within five business days of receipt of this letter,” wrote TWO attorney Michael Hamar. “Should Mr. Quinlan and PFOX refuse to accept these terms, Mr. Besen will have no alternative other than to seek relief in court and in the process of the litigation subject Mr. Quinlan and/or PFOX to depositions, interrogatories and other discovery processes.”
The veracity of PFOX has long been questioned. Its former president, Richard Cohen, was expelled for life from the American Counseling Association for multiple ethics violations. A key member of the organization’s Speaker’s Bureau, Arthur Abba Goldberg, is a convicted felon sent to prison for financial fraud. In 2010, Quinlan attended a conference organized by Americans for Truth About Homosexuality, a group that is listed as a certified Southern Poverty Law Center hate group. During his speech at the meeting, Quinlan disparaged LGBT people and said that when he used to live as an openly gay man he wasn’t a “flaming faggot.”
“I wasn’t your flaming faggot, you know,” Quinlan told the chuckling crowd. “I can say that because I’ve been there and done that. You know, the one’s whose wrists are so limp that when the wind blows they slap themselves in the face. I wasn’t one of them.”
Please consider a tax-deductible contribution to Truth Wins Out today to help us fight this critical legal battle with PFOX. If we don’t stand up to such blatant lies, we are giving our opponents a green light to smear the entire LGBT community.
It is critical that we finally push back and say “ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!” If we won’t fight back when they accuse us of attempted murder — when will we? The time to take a stand against these dishonest bullies is NOW!
On October 7, 2011 Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays (PFOX) President Greg Quinlan was interviewed on News-Plus with Mark Segraves (WDCW-TV). Throughout the show, Quinlan distorts reality and flat out lies on many subjects. However, at the 10:38 mark he commits slander. According to Quinlan:
“Truth Wins Out if you look further, including Wayne Besen. He’s asked for people, you know, somebody needs to run Greg over. He needs to be hit with a bus. Somebody should inject him with AIDS. Those are the things that Wayne Besen and Truth WIns Out says about me. That’s pretty hateful rhetoric.”
Unfortunately for Quinlan nothing he said about me or Truth Wins Out is true or accurate. What he said was outright libel and a complete fabrication that he invented out of thin air. It speaks to Quinlan’s character that he lies so easily and simply makes things up. As for me, I’d be more than happy to take a lie detector test or a NoLie MRI to prove that I’ve never said such vile words. Will Quinlan also take these tests to prove the “veracity” of his calumny?
Truth Wins Out is exploring its legal options. Do our readers think that we should sue PFOX and Quinlan for libel and defamation?
Oh look, it’s the same tired rhetoric we’re used to from the laughable hate group known as PFOX:
Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays & Gays (PFOX) is urging parents, students and educators to distribute ex-gay literature at high schools and colleges across the country this Friday.
“We invite schools to distribute our ex-gay brochures year round,” said Regina Griggs, PFOX’s executive director, “but this Friday is especially important because it is considered a ‘day of silence’ by homosexual school clubs. This means that members of gay student clubs and their allies will purposely remain silent all day in school to protest intolerance against homosexuals and cross-dressers.”
“Because homosexual activists try to censor the ex-gay point of view, PFOX asks students to distribute ex-gay literature to their friends in support of equality for the ex-gay community,” said Griggs. “The day of silence enables students to distribute ex-gay literature without harassment since opponents are obligated to remain silent that day.”
And again, we roll our collective eyes and say:
REGINA. If “ex-gays” really exist, then they are “straight,” and thus have the same rights as all other straight people, by which we mean, more rights than gay people. If “ex-gay” is simply a religious construct caused by consumer fraud and spiritual abuse [it is], then those people are gay, and are on the same second tier as the rest of us gay people.
Anyway, it’s really sick that, on a day which simply seeks to draw attention to the bullying, harassment, depression, violence and suicide experienced by LGBT teens, things which are largely caused by the climate of abuse created by the Religious Right, that Regina Griggs would still feel a perverse need to hurt gay kids. But that’s how people like Regina are, and thank goodness, people young and old are starting to see them for the bigots they are.
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) released a landmark report today adding new official Hate Groups to its well-respected list. The report concludes that the overall climate is getting better for LGBT people, which is leading some anti-gay organizations to get even more extreme.
Such extremism has taken its toll.
SPLC analyzed hate crime statistics and compared the rate of victimization for homosexuals to that of the other groups:
The figures show that homosexuals are 2.4 times more likely to suffer a violent hate crime attack than Jews (8.3 divided by 3.5). In the same way, gays are 2.6 times more likely to be attacked than blacks; 4.4 times more likely than Muslims; 13.8 times more likely than Latinos; and 41.5 times more likely than whites, according to the FBI figures. The basic pattern holds by years as well as across the years.
The bottom line: Homosexuals are far more likely than any other minority group in the United States to be victimized by violent hate crime.
One new organization certified as an official hate group is the Family Research Council. A key reason for the listing is FRC’s Peter Sprigg, who is also on the board of Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays. PFOX just weaseled its way in as a charity at the World Bank. Here is what SPLC had to say about PFOX’s go-to guy:
Headed today by former Louisiana State Rep. Tony Perkins, the FRC has been a font of anti-gay propaganda throughout its history. It relies on the work of Robert Knight, who also worked at Concerned Women for America but now is at Coral Ridge Ministries (see above for both), along with that of FRC senior research fellows Tim Dailey (hired in 1999) and Peter Sprigg (2001). Both Dailey and Sprigg have pushed false accusations linking gay men to pedophilia (see related story, p. 31): Sprigg has written that most men who engage in same-sex child molestation “identify themselves as homosexual or bisexual,” and Dailey and Sprigg devoted an entire chapter of their 2004 book Getting It Straight to similar material. The men claimed that “homosexuals are overrepresented in child sex offenses” and similarly asserted that “homosexuals are attracted in inordinate numbers to boys.”
More recently, in March 2008, Sprigg, responding to a question about uniting gay partners during the immigration process, said: “I would much prefer to export homosexuals from the United States than to import them.” He later apologized, but then went on, last February, to tell MSNBC host Chris Matthews, “I think there would be a place for criminal sanctions on homosexual behavior.” “So we should outlaw gay behavior?” Matthews asked. “Yes,” Sprigg replied. At around the same time, Sprigg claimed that allowing gay people to serve openly in the military would lead to an increase in gay-on-straight sexual assaults.
When the World Bank learned about PFOX’s radical program, it made a step in the right direction by ensuring it would not receive tax-payer money through World Bank matching funds in 2011. However, to punish PFOX, the World Bank had to undermine 24 legitimate organizations that will also not be eligible for matching funds.
Given this new information on Sprigg and his ties to PFOX, the World Bank should move expeditiously to reinstate the legitimate organizations and drop PFOX as a charity. Unless, that is, the World Bank is comfortable associating itself with extremists who seek to discriminate against, blatantly lie about, deport and imprison LGBT people.
The World Bank should act now before it diminishes its reputation as a tolerant organization that respects diversity. This is particularly important because associating with radical hate-mongers will also damage the World Banks global efforts to combat HIV/AIDS.
This is not the first time that PFOX has been tied to hate groups.
In August, two key members of PFOX spoke at the “Truth Academy”. The conference was hosted by Americans For Truth About Homosexuality’s founder Peter LaBarbera, whose organization was also listed today as an official hate site by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
At the Truth Academy, PFOX Board President Greg Quinlan raised eyebrows with an offensive speech. Quinlan explained how he allegedly went from gay-to-straight, and found support from an Assemblies of God Church that accepted him because he allegedly was not effeminate.
“I wasn’t your flaming faggot, you know,” Quinlan told the chuckling crowd. “I can say that because I’ve been there and done that. You know, the one’s whose wrists are so limp that when the wind blows they slap themselves in the face. I wasn’t one of them.”
At the same conference, Arthur Abba Goldberg, the convicted Wall Street thief who runs PFOX’s speakers bureau, demonstrated PFOX’s unscientific use of stereotypes.
“By the way, did you notice that a lot of gays who remain in the gay lifestyle also do a lot of body building,” said Abba Goldberg. “They will be in the gym a lot trying to build up their pecs…Because they have these body image issues and don’t feel they are masculine enough.”
Again, we ask the World Bank: Do you really want to be linked to destructive people such as Abba Goldberg, Sprigg, LaBarbera and Quinlan?
(Exodus’ Randy Thomas schmoozing with Karl Rove in headier times)
Is the once active “ex-gay” organization Exodus International on the decline?
Those who follow the group have noticed fewer events scheduled and virtually no media presence. The last press release for Exodus was posted on October 6, and the group’s front page promotes an event as far back as June. In terms of messaging, the group appears to be stuck in a rut and its once vital campaigns have grown predictable and stale.
Needless to say, I’m pleased with this development!
It is unclear if Exodus’ woes are a result of an internal shake-up, or if financial setbacks have hobbled the organization. Perhaps, they are not working as closely with Focus on the Family, which augmented Exodus’ past campaigns with creativity and professionalism. Ever since Focus on the Family handed over the flashy “ex-gay” road show Love Won Out to Exodus, it appears that the standing of Exodus has diminished.
The only evidence the group is still alive comes from Vice President Randy Thomas’ blog posts. But, even this venue suffers from inertia and rust, with Thomas posting offensive videos of Chambers preaching hate in 2006. Are there no new videos or messages to highlight?
In 2010 the organization left hardly a footprint. Its sluggish efforts lacked energy, and its impact had noticeably diminished. It will be interesting to see if Exodus comes out of its slumber and recovers in 2011.
The “ex-gay” group People Can Change (PCC) is increasingly filling the void left by Exodus. PCC runs Journey Into Manhood (JIM) weekends, which is a scam that takes gay men into the woods for $650, with the goal of making them more masculine. The group recently gained notoriety after ABC Nightline filmed a puff piece highlighting the group’s work. (A more accurate description of the group might be Journey into Manhunt)
The good news is that PCC is particularly vulnerable to scandal and outright collapse. This heavily Mormon organization adheres to the bizarre therapy model of Richard Cohen, the laughable and discredited “Sexual Reorientation Coach” who runs the bizarre International Healing Foundation. Convicted Wall Street hood, Arthur Abba Goldberg, is responsible for funneling a good number of paying clients into the group. (I’d love to see what’s in it for him) The organization’s senior trainer, Alan Downing, faced credible accusations of sexual misconduct by two clients earlier this year.
The PCC scheme is likely on borrowed time and is making a mistake by stepping out so publicly. Journalist Ted Cox wrote a fabulous expose showing the creepy and peculiar happenings at Journey into Manhood weekends. We had hoped that ABC Nightline would have engaged in real journalism and corroborated Cox’s story. However, they eschewed investigative reporting for cheap access to the camp, leading to a disappointing and woefully incomplete depiction and representation of Journey into Manhood weekends.
Still, it is only a matter of time before committed broadcast journalists with standards of excellence infiltrate JIM to reveal the closety, homo-erotic exercises that are offered in the camp’s “Cuddle Room”. When this happens, the entire program will turn into a punchline. I can hardly wait.
PFOX is also trying to assert itself, but its ties to the colorful and outrageous sexual engineer, Richard Cohen, will likely retard the group’s progress. The organization’s president, Greg Quinlan, appears angry and unstable, further hindering PFOX’s efforts to have an impact and gain mainstream credibility. And, Executive Director Regina Griggs is no more than a figurehead who avoids public appearances outside the safety of adoring fundamenalist Christian audiences. Indeed, PFOX may simply be a shell group for the Family Research Council and a number of Christian legal groups that want to show that “ex-gays” exist for political reasons. (To its detriment, PFOX embarrassingly can’t find real “ex-gays” to show, unless they work for the group, like Quinlan)
The National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) remains a dangerous organization, because their members pose as legitimate experts on homosexuality. However, they consistently underachieve because they fail to produce respectable peer review studies. Instead, they offer up transparent propaganda that has undermined the organization’s reputation with the public and media.
It will be interesting to see which one of these organizations — or perhaps a new one — comes out of the woodwork to pick up the slack. Hopefully, the answer is “None of the above.”
Richard Cohen, continues to undermine “ex-gay” groups
I’d love to know what PFOX’s Regina Griggs is so afraid of?
What is she hiding?
It seems that she may be the only Executive Director of a non-profit in America that has no public photograph. I find it shady and suspicious that she dodges cameras and tries to conceal her identity. There are fugitives with an easier to find profile and photo.
Is there something that she is not telling us? Is she simply ashamed to be shown publicly, given PFOX’s heinous lies?
If she is going to run a grotesque propaganda campaign, she has a moral duty to come out of the shadows.
There is a brochure on the website of Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays (PFOX) that says,”Get Smart, Get The Facts”. Unfortunately, PFOX is fact averse when it comes to accepting that the District of Columbia has rescinded a certificate supposedly honoring the “ex-gay” organization.
On April 28, 2010, a controversy erupted after it was discovered that Adrian Fenty, then the mayor of Washington, D.C., inadvertently signed a “Certificate of Appreciation” for radical PFOX activist Regina Griggs. An ecstatic PFOX plastered the certificate prominently on its website. According to a gushing PFOX press release:
The government of the District of Columbia has awarded a certificate of appreciation to Regina Griggs, executive director of Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays & Gays (PFOX). The certificate, signed by D.C. mayor Adrian Fenty, recognizes Griggs for her “dedication, commitment, and outstanding contributions as Executive Director of Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays.”
“Regina’s award is well-deserved,” said Greg Quinlan, President of Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays & Gays. PFOX presented the award to Griggs last week in honor of her ten years of volunteer service to parents and the ex-gay community.
Like most everything with PFOX, the dust-up was a combination of grandstanding and smoke and mirrors. As for the certificate, it was essentially meaningless — no more than a perfunctory piece of paper signed by auto pen that virtually anyone could attain with minimal effort.
Nevertheless, PFOX deceptively pretended that the paper was a significant achievement that conferred the endorsement of the DC government. (Yes, the group’s actions are truly as desperate and pathetic as they sound.)
Upon learning that PFOX had received the lame piece of paper and was misrepresenting it as a real accomplishment, the mayor’s office took back the “honor”. The mayor’s office released a statement saying:
“A staff level error was made when the request for the certificate in question was fulfilled. We apologize for the error as it runs contrary to the Mayor’s vision of a more open and inclusive city.”
This very public and humiliating spanking occurred in April 2010. Yet, PFOX still has the certificate proudly displayed on its website.
Clearly, PFOX is an untrustworthy and unscrupulous organization with few morals and little regard for truth. If the group had one scintilla of integrity, it would have taken the certificate down from its site in April. Yet, the group continues to misrepresent itself and mislead the public — including potential clients in which it is trying to hawk expensive “ex-gay” snake oil cures.
To view the rescinded certificate, please visit the PFOX website and scroll down to the right hand corner.
Ironically, PFOX was allowed into the World Bank program as a DC-based charity*, even as it blatantly continues to defy the will of the DC government and parades a certificate that it was plainly told was invalid.
It is impossible to shame PFOX, because the group is shameless.
** PFOX is also fudging its DC credentials in its attempt to access taxpayer money through the World Bank. In reality, PFOX is not even close to DC. Its headquarters is in Reedville, VA — 127 miles and a two hour and forty minute drive southeast of the nation’s capitol. To be listed as a charity an organziation has to have “a substantial local presence in the Greater Washington metropolitan area.” No one familiar with the workings of this group can claim that PFOX has but minimal ties to the District.
In August, two key members of the “ex-gay” organization PFOX spoke at the “Truth Academy”. The conference was hosted by the paradoxically named Americans For Truth About Homosexuality, whose founder Peter LaBarbera’s website is listed as an official “hate site” by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
At the Truth Academy, PFOX Board President Greg Quinlan raised eyebrows with an offensive speech explaining how he allegedly went from gay-to-straight, and found support from an Assemblies of God Church that accepted him because he supposedly was not effeminate.
“I wasn’t your flaming faggot, you know,” Quinlan told the chuckling crowd. “I can say that because I’ve been there and done that. You know, the one’s whose wrists are so limp that when the wind blows they slap themselves in the face. I wasn’t one of them.”
At the same conference, Arthur Abba Goldberg, the convicted Wall Street thief who runs PFOX’s speaker’s bureau, demonstrated PFOX’s unscientific use of stereotypes.
“By the way, did you notice that a lot of gays who remain in the gay lifestyle also do a lot of body building,” said Abba Goldberg. “They will be in the gym a lot trying to build up their pecs…Because they have these body image issues and don’t feel they are masculine enough.”
Clearly, Virginia-based PFOX is a dangerous organization that traffics in ugly slurs and crass stereotypes. The group has not one iota of science to back up its anti-gay rhetoric, so it turns to quacks for guidance, such as its former board President Richard Cohen.
Cohen runs the sham group, the International Healing Foundation which specializes in bizarre “ex-gay” therapies, such as a banging a pillow with a tennis racket, while yelling a parent’s name. In 2009, Cohen sent his protégé, Caleb Lee Brundidge (who claims to raise the dead), to Uganda. The result of his visit was the introduction of the deadly and draconian Anti-Homosexuality Bill. Incidentally, Cohen was permanently expelled from the American Counseling Association on March 23, 2002 for multiple ethics violations.
With no credibility, PFOX tries to legitimize its homophobia by slyly gaining endorsements from mainstream institutions – usually through chicanery, such as disguising what the organization truly stands for.
For example, earlier this year, PFOX pretended the District of Columbia government endorsed it, after its Executive Director Regina Griggs received a Certificate of Appreciation. Upon learning that PFOX had received the perfunctory piece of paper and plastered its website with it, the mayor’s office took back the “honor”.
“A staff level error was made when the request for the certificate in question was fulfilled. We apologize for the error as it runs contrary to the Mayor’s vision of a more open and inclusive city,” the mayor’s office wrote to PFOX.
The latest victim of PFOX’s hapless and pathetic quest for legitimacy is the World Bank, which foolishly approved this organization of reprobates as an official charity. They got the illustrious listing after a small number of anti-gay staff-members at the World Bank had recommended PFOX for this year’s Community Connections Campaign. World Bank matching funds were to be given to the chosen charities. Depending on the level of employee participation, the bank’s matching funds are either 50 percent or 100 percent of the employee donations.
My organization Truth Wins Out and Change.org launched an online petition to drop PFOX from the list of charities. Members of the World Bank staff also made a persuasive case against using taxpayer funds to assist PFOX. Funding this organization would make a mockery of the group’s commitment to diversity and undermine its efforts to fight HIV/AIDS.
Armed with new information, The World Bank decided to take another look at PFOX and elected to change their guidelines. According to the new rules:
Bank-matching funds will be provided to those organizations that have, through prior participation, established a track record of support with staff. Organizations that have come on the list this year will not be offered matching funds in this year’s campaign, though the Bank will match any contribution that has been made to this latter group prior to today, November 15, 2010. We will review the new organizations after one year, to see if they have the staff and community support to warrant a match in the FY12 campaign.
The World Bank should have simply dumped PFOX from the campaign. Unfortunately, PFOX’s self-serving and underhanded quest to grandstand cost twenty-five respected organizations the opportunity to receive matching funds. But at least this interim measure keeps this hate group away from taxpayer funds.
PFOX can bank on the fact that the more people know about the bizarre therapy it endorses, the unprofessional counselors in which it associates, and the slimy way it distorts science and sniffs out publicity – the less support it will receive.
Burlington, Vt. – Truth Wins Out announced today that it intends to launch a defamation lawsuit against Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays (PFOX) as soon as possible. The lawsuit is a result of PFOX President Greg Quinlan’s comments on a Washington, DC television show claiming that TWO Executive Director, Wayne Besen, tried to have him murdered.
Burlington, Vt. – Truth Wins Out 
The veracity of PFOX has long been questioned. Its former president, Richard Cohen, was expelled for life from the American Counseling Association for multiple ethics violations. A key member of the organization’s Speaker’s Bureau, Arthur Abba Goldberg, is a convicted felon sent to prison for financial fraud. In 2010, Quinlan attended a conference organized by Americans for Truth About Homosexuality, a group that is listed as a certified Southern Poverty Law Center hate group. During his speech at the meeting, Quinlan disparaged LGBT people and said that when he used to live as an openly gay man he wasn’t a “flaming faggot.”
Clearly, PFOX is an untrustworthy and unscrupulous organization with few morals and little regard for truth. If the group had one scintilla of integrity, it would have taken the certificate down from its site in April. Yet, the group continues to misrepresent itself and mislead the public — including potential clients in which it is trying to hawk expensive “ex-gay” snake oil cures.
