Truth Wins Out  the LGBT organization formed by Wayne Besen that fights anti-gay religious extremism and monitors anti-LGBT organizations announced today that it is going to put forth a defamation lawsuit against Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays (PFOX) 

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. Quinlan  has also been defaming publicly been defaming Besen’s character by falsely stating that Beesen was fired from the Human Rights Campaign, where he served as Deputy Director of Communications from 1998-2003 and that Besen has said that Besen had said to him that someone should run hom over with a bus or inject him with AIDS.

For those of you who don’t know, Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays (PFOX) was started in the late 1990′ as an effort to mock the successful pro-gay organization, Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG).From its beginning , PFOX was a tool funded and used by the extreme religious right to deny equality to GLBT Americans. In 1998, the group was jumpstarted with an $80,000 grant from the officially recognized anti-gay hate group the Family Research Council.

Truth Wins Out sent Quinlan and PFOX a letter giving  them an opportunity to apologize for their smear campaign. , Quinlan responded:

 “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 to defamation. Little man, I’m calling your bluff.”  

“We are preparing a lawsuit and PFOX will soon realize that this is no bluff,  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.”