More Lies and False Claims of Death Treats from PFOX

For those unfamiliar with PFOX - a/k/a Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays - the organization is basically an anti-gay front organization funded historically by a who's who of anti-gay organizations. I often use the term "ex-gay for pay" on this blog and it certainly applies to the "ex-gays" at PFOX who will happily lie not only to themselves but anyone they can get to listen to them in exchange for a pay check and/or a front that gives them some semblance of respectability amongst the Kool-Aid drinking followers of Christianist set and far right extremist who desperately want to maintain the myth that sexual orientation can change for political reasons among others. Truth and veracity and PFOX are generally mutually exclusive and PFOX's current president Greg Quinlan takes the untruths to new levels and accuses legitimate researchers of falsifying or lying about their research.

In fact, Quinlan has gone even further and alleged in television interview that Wayne Besen of Truth Wins Out who I've known for over 8 years and have worked with a number of times (e.g., we collaborated to expose national level "ex-gay" poster boy Michael Johnston as a fraud and dug up the information to expose Arthur Abba Goldberg, the head of JONAH, a/k/a Jews Offering New Alternatives to Homosexuality and a board member of NARTH to be a disbarred attorney and convicted felon- he was part of a multi-billion dollar fraudulent securities offering). Wayne is considering a lawsuit against PFOX (which is conveniently based in tiny Reedville, Virginia) and Quinlan. I'd be more than happy to be local counsel. Here are highlights from Ex-Gay Watch's coverage of Quinlan's blatant lies:

Current PFOX president Greg Quinlan appeared for an interview recently on a local D.C. station. While the interviewer, Mark Segraves (WDCW-TV), was better prepared than most, it doesn’t seem he understood the depth of misinformation Quinlan is willing to put forth. It would take a week to tease through the factual errors in this short interview, and much of it has been covered before. For example, claims that PFOX won a suit in D.C to have ex-gays considered a protected class have been confronted before.

Quinlan goes on to accuse noted geneticist Dean Hamer of lying about his research, Dr. Robert Spitzer of not knowing what his own research says on the possibility of sexual orientation change, and claims that AIDS is a “homosexual disease.” This is not the first time Quinlan has been accused of distorting a researchers work.

Most astounding were Quinlan’s claims that Truth Wins Out director Wayne Besen wanted someone to run him over with a bus, or inject him with AIDS:

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.

These are serious allegations and demand a solid source for confirmation. For the record, Besen denies ever making the comments and we join him in challenging Quinlan to produce evidence of this claim. It’s worth reviewing the video in full just to see how fast and lose Quinlan plays with the truth.

As is the norm for PFOX, it's the one that spreads hateful rhetoric not to mention deliberate untruths. Grove City College professor and licensed therapist Warren Throckmorton also gets into the act of underscoring Quinlan's dishonesty:

Really? Besen has said some critical and dismissive things about ex-gays but I’ve never heard anything like that. Quinlan may soon have to provide proof of that since Besen absolutely denies the charges and may sue for defamation.

There are other questionable aspects to Quinlan’s claims. In the interview, Quinlan says that both APAs say that sexuality is fluid (not really, they say identity can shift but that orientation is pretty fixed). He says he is not paid to be ex-gay (sorry, I know the history there, his reputation is founded on his status as an ex-gay). He says that is acceptable for him to refer to gays as “faggots” because it is acceptable for blacks to use the “N” word referring to themselves (I’ll let readers ponder that one).

When confronted with the fact that Richard Cohen was expelled from the American Counseling Association, Quinlan said at 11:40, “But he hasn’t lost his license.” To my knowledge, Richard never had a license and he certainly does not now. Then he told Sagraves that Richard has a 90% success rate helping people change. If Richard claims that, I have never seen it.

Frankly, nothing would be more enjoyable that seeing a lawsuit go forward against PFOX and Quinlan. The thought of Quinlan in depositions with potential perjury charges hanging over his head almost makes my giddy. Add to that the discovery process in general that would force PFOX to produce documents and answer interrogatories in writing, and it could be a death knell for PFOX. I'm very confident that there is ZERO legitimate research or documentation to back up any of Quinlan's outrageous statements.