Truth Wins Out condemned Parents & Friends of Ex-Gays today for grossly exaggerating a court case they actually lost and portraying it as a victory. In reality, The Superior Court of the District of Columbia denied PFOX’s claim that The National Education Association had discriminated against them in applying for a booth at the NEA convention.
In a breathless press release PFOX called their failure a “precedent setting case” and claimed that the Court ruled that “former homosexuals are a protected class that must be recognized under sexual orientation non-discrimination laws.” What the court actually did was disagree with DC’s Office of Human Rights, which had said that ex-gays are not covered under the D.C. Human Rights Act, because a protected a group must show immutable characteristics.
Judge Maurice Ross said today that the DC Human Rights Amendment protects other mutable characteristics.
The HRA [Human Rights Amendment] clearly does not limit itself only to immutable characteristics. The premise of the HRA is simple: to end all discrimination based on anything other than individual merit. Numerous protected classes listed in the HRA include mutable traits.
Well, obviously, people can switch religions, for example, so technically OHR’s application of law may have been incorrect. But a victory for PFOX? Hardly.
“The court’s decision stated the obvious and the spin from PFOX’s loss is downright bizarre,” said Wayne Besen, Executive Director of Truth Wins Out. “I think PFOX has furthered its reputation as a group that distorts the truth and exaggerates the facts to further its strange political agenda. This is a group that has no sense of reality and lives in a parallel universe devoid of reason and logic.”
The outlandish PFOX release made its loss in court appear to be a legal victory:
“We are gratified that the ex-gay community in Washington D.C. now has the same civil rights that gays enjoy,” said Regina Griggs, executive director of Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays & Gays (PFOX), which had filed the lawsuit against the District of Columbia government for failing to protect former homosexuals in the Nation’ Capital.
“What is clear is that the court clearly stated that the NEA did not discriminate against Parents and Friends of Ex-gays,” said Besen.
The real reason PFOX twisted the truth was so it could confuse educators. The organization wants teachers and administrators to believe that they are in legal peril if they exclude the theories of so-called “ex-gays”.
“The NEA must also stop its bias against the NEA Ex-Gay Educators Caucus by appointing an ex-gay caucus member to the NEA Sexual Orientation Committee,” wrote PFOX, revealing its true agenda. “This committee is staffed with members of the NEA’s gay and transgender caucus, although the ex-gay caucus has asked for inclusion.”
