FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday, Nov. 11, 2010
Contact: Wayne Besen, TWO Executive Director
Phone: 917-691-5118
E-Mail: wbesen@truthwinsout.org
Web: www.TruthWinsOut.org
World Bank Must Investigate PFOX For Fraud, Says TWO
NEW YORK – Truth Wins Out today called on the World Bank to immediately take the “ex-gay” hate group PFOX off of its list of approved charities and demanded they launch a thorough investigation to see if PFOX conspired to defraud the bank.
“It’s as sickening as it is scandalous that the World Bank is helping to fund an organization that is tied to a worldwide eliminationist campaign against gay people,” said Truth Wins Out’s Executive Director Wayne Besen. “The World Bank should urgently reject PFOX before it sullies the institution and makes a mockery of its claim to be diverse and inclusive.”
Metro Weekly reporter Chris Geidner discovered yesterday that PFOX was slated to become part of the World Bank’s Community Outreach Program, which coordinates an annual workplace-giving campaign that includes World Bank matching funds given to various community groups and international nonprofits. Depending on the level of employee participation, the bank’s matching funds are either 50 percent or 100 percent of the employee donations.
PFOX’s former board President is Richard Cohen, (pictured during racket therapy) who still serves as the “therapy” guru of the organization. Cohen runs the International Healing Foundation and sent his protégé, Caleb Lee Brundidge, to Uganda. The result of his visit was the introduction of the deadly and draconian Anti-Homosexuality Bill.
The director of PFOX’s speaker’s bureau is Arthur Abba Goldberg (pictured), who had been sentenced to 18 months in jail for bilking poor communities with complicated bond schemes and served six months in prison. An October 1, 1989 story in the Philadelphia Inquirer reveals that Goldberg jokingly described a bond issue the firm had underwritten in Guam as “selling bonds to the cannibals” and nearly crippled Guam’s economy.
“Is this the kind of organization that the World Bank wants to be associated with?” asked Besen.
Truth Wins Out believes that PFOX may have qualified for the charitable status by lying about its location and activities. To be included in the World Bank’s Community Outreach Program, an organization is required to have, “a substantial local presence in the Greater Washington metropolitan area.”
PFOX fails to fulfill the criteria. The organization is based in Reedville, VA — placing the town 127 miles — and a two hour and forty minute drive — southeast of the nation’s capitol. Indeed, Richmond is significantly closer to Reedville and is a mere 85 miles away from PFOX’s headquarters.
“It is factually incorrect to say that PFOX has a ‘substantial local presence in DC’”, said Truth Wins Out’s Executive Director Wayne Besen. “Either PFOX is committing fraud against the World Bank, or they are receiving special rights from the organization and inexplicably allowed to pass as a local organization.”
The truth is, PFOX does not meet in the metro area and has almost no local footprint, other than an occasional lobbying foray or an advertising buy. The Washington City Paper confirmed that PFOX has no local DC presence in a 2009 report, “The Ex-Gay Movement That Wasn’t”. According to the news report:
Unfortunately for PFOX and reporters on the sexual-orientation beat, ex-gay Washingtonians are hard to come by. Since each of my dozen or so calls to PFOX headquarters went unanswered, I am unable to confirm any of the group’s purported ex-gay offspring or friends. J. Matt Barber, a member of the PFOX board of directors, tells me that he has “a number of very close friends who are former homosexuals”—none of whom live in D.C.
“The World Bank needs to answer why it is bending the rules to accommodate an ideological organization that, under any objective measure, does not meet the criteria of working in the DC metro area,” says TWO’s Besen. “It is outrageous that PFOX tried to pull a fast one and they should immediately pull the plug on this scheme. We call on The World Bank to launch a thorough investigation to see if PFOX and some World Bank employees conspired to misrepresent PFOX’s location in an effort to defraud the bank.”
PFOX also does not list any legitimate chapters in DC or Virginia. The only “contact” e-mail listed in DC or VA is that of the national organization.
Additionally, PFOX work is rejected by every mainstream medical and mental health organization in America, including the American Psychological Association, The American Medical Association, The American Psychiatric Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics. Instead of helping clients, so-called “ex-gay” therapy harms them and can lead to anxiety, depression and self-destructive behavior.
Here are a few videos of PFOX activists and the bizarre therapy that the World Bank wants to support:
