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.
Greg Quinlan is listed as president of the anti-gay PFOX (Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays), and also claims to work full-time for the New Jersey Family Policy Council, a conservative lobbying organization. One can only wonder what he tells lawmakers.
Full Video Here
Media really shouldn’t allow people like Quinlan to say this without a challenge. Or perhaps they shouldn’t be invited to speak at all unless they will tell the truth. There apparently isn’t any regard for the risk of liability or libel and slander. The only thing that makes Quinlan THIS comfortable with such lying is that he WILL and DOES get away with it. No one consults with the KKK or other supremacists or extremists for their opinion on blacks or Jews as a ‘matter of interest’ or ‘balance’.
Quinlan is counting on the ignorance and laziness of the media’s fact checkers (if there are any) to get his point across. It’s a disgrace that he’s treated with such seriousness as if there is veracity to his claims.
If the media were serious about those challenges, what might happen is that Quinlan might complain he was being set up or treated unfairly and the audience would realize he was a liar.
I’ve seen other anti gay people really lose their cool and they hate being revealed for what they are. Eventually they won’t come into forums where they know they’ll have to be really careful.
Wish the interviewers had more guts (or perhaps talent) than they seem to have for this kind of subject.
I thought the interviewer did a pretty good job actually. He had and presented opposing points of view, he showed that he had at least researched before speaking with GQ. We in the cause know the talking points and can refute them off the top of our heads, but a tv guy every day it is a different guest and a different subject. I thought he was pretty good actually.
@Straight Grandmother
He did better than most, but he still let Quinlan get by with a bunch of false statements. FYI, if you put a space between the “Straight” and the “Grandmother” in your name, your nickname will display fully. I changed it on your last two comments so people could see who you were.