NEW YORK – Truth Wins Out (TWO) today called on Parents and Friends of ‘Ex-Gays’ (PFOX) to drop its frivolous lawsuit against the Washington, DC Office of Human Rights. PFOX claimed it launched its suit because so-called “ex-gays” are not protected under its sexual orientation anti-discrimination law.

“The ex-gay community is the most bullied and maligned group in America, yet they are not protected by sexual orientation non-discrimination laws,” said Regina Griggs, PFOX executive director.

“If so-called ‘ex-gays’ are now heterosexual, they are covered under the basis of sexual orientation,” said Wayne Besen, Executive Director of Truth Wins Out. “This nonsensical lawsuit is frivolous and a desperate, grandstanding attempt for free media attention. PFOX should apologize for clogging up the court system with a loony lawsuit that will ultimately be dismissed.”

TWO also disputes that so-called “ex-gays” suffer discrimination. PFOX has never offered any evidence and has long invented or greatly exaggerated potential cases. PFOX is a political organization that sells the idea that people can “pray away the gay.” It was founded by lawyer Roy Cohn’s ex-boyfriend, Anthony Falzarono, and bankrolled by the Family Research Council. It was later run by therapist Richard Cohen, who was banned for life by the American Counseling Association. The current leader is Regina Griggs, who has an openly gay son.

Anthony Falzarano - the founder of Parents and Friends of ‘Ex-Gays’ (PFOX) - was a leading “ex-gay” spokesperson in the late 90’s. His media-friendly story was quite unique, in that he claims he was Roy Cohn’s rent boy and partied each night like it was 1999.

Falzarano’s entry into the ex-gay scene in the early 80’s has always been a little murky. In one version of his tale, God told Falzarano to go straight before the AIDS crises hit. In another version, after many of his friends had passed away, God told him to become ex-gay. In yet a third version, one of his sexual conquests felt guilty after their encounter and introduced him to Christ. Obviously, these colorful versions are contradictions and they can’t all be true.

If there is one thing about Falzarano - he is not opposed to telling a good story, the facts be damned. So, his fictional book, “Such Were Some of You: One Man’s Walk Out of the Gay Lifestyle,” is sure to be entertaining and certainly much better than Exodus’ Alan Chambers depressingly trite tome, “God’s Grace and the Homosexual Next Door.”

Falzarano holds to the empty and unsupported belief that homosexuality is caused by a young person being molested - and he pulls bogus figures out of thin air to bolster his case. Indeed, he is known to invent new percentages on the number of gay people molested from one interview to the next. The man has no scruples and honesty is just an inconvenience in his bizarre universe.

He is also a proponent of spiritual warfare, once telling CBS News, “AIDS comes from the devil, directly from Satan. He uses homosexuals as pawns and then he kills them.” Another time, he called hate crime victim Matthew Shepard a “predator to heterosexual men.” (Read More)