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Written by WiG
Feb 22, 2012
Wayne Besen. - PHOTO: Courtesy
The Truth Wins Out gay advocacy group sued Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and its president Greg Quinlan for saying on TV that TWO executive director Wayne Besen tried to have him killed.
The lawsuit was filed in Virginia’s Northumberland County Circuit Court, where PFOX is headquartered.
Norfolk, Va., attorney Michael Hamar is representing TWO, which says that Quinlan’s false allegations “were deviously designed” to damage the organization’s reputation, as well as Besen’s reputation.
TWO was formed to challenge organizations such as PFOX, which claim that homosexuality is a disease or sickness to be cured with reparative therapy treatment.
Last October, Quinlan appeared on News-Plus with Mark Segraves on WDCW-TV and, at one point in the show said, “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 asked PFOX for an apology.
But, in a news release on Feb. 22, TWO said that Quinlan instead lashed out with a 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 to defamation. Little man, I’m calling your bluff.”
Besen said Quinlan also “falsely claimed that I was fired from the Human Rights Campaign, where I served as deputy Director of Communications from 1998-2003. In reality, I left HRC after five years on good terms to pursue a new career opportunity.”
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