There is a brochure on the website of Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays (PFOX) that says,”Get Smart, Get The Facts”. Unfortunately, PFOX is fact averse when it comes to accepting that the District of Columbia has rescinded a certificate supposedly honoring the “ex-gay” organization.
On April 28, 2010, a controversy erupted after it was discovered that Adrian Fenty, then the mayor of Washington, D.C., inadvertently signed a “Certificate of Appreciation” for radical PFOX activist Regina Griggs. An ecstatic PFOX plastered the certificate prominently on its website. According to a gushing PFOX press release:
The government of the District of Columbia has awarded a certificate of appreciation to Regina Griggs, executive director of Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays & Gays (PFOX). The certificate, signed by D.C. mayor Adrian Fenty, recognizes Griggs for her “dedication, commitment, and outstanding contributions as Executive Director of Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays.”
“Regina’s award is well-deserved,” said Greg Quinlan, President of Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays & Gays. PFOX presented the award to Griggs last week in honor of her ten years of volunteer service to parents and the ex-gay community.
Like most everything with PFOX, the dust-up was a combination of grandstanding and smoke and mirrors. As for the certificate, it was essentially meaningless — no more than a perfunctory piece of paper signed by auto pen that virtually anyone could attain with minimal effort.
Nevertheless, PFOX deceptively pretended that the paper was a significant achievement that conferred the endorsement of the DC government. (Yes, the group’s actions are truly as desperate and pathetic as they sound.)
Upon learning that PFOX had received the lame piece of paper and was misrepresenting it as a real accomplishment, the mayor’s office took back the “honor”. The mayor’s office released a statement saying:
“A staff level error was made when the request for the certificate in question was fulfilled. We apologize for the error as it runs contrary to the Mayor’s vision of a more open and inclusive city.”
This very public and humiliating spanking occurred in April 2010. Yet, PFOX still has the certificate proudly displayed on its website.
Clearly, PFOX is an untrustworthy and unscrupulous organization with few morals and little regard for truth. If the group had one scintilla of integrity, it would have taken the certificate down from its site in April. Yet, the group continues to misrepresent itself and mislead the public — including potential clients in which it is trying to hawk expensive “ex-gay” snake oil cures.
To view the rescinded certificate, please visit the PFOX website and scroll down to the right hand corner.
Ironically, PFOX was allowed into the World Bank program as a DC-based charity*, even as it blatantly continues to defy the will of the DC government and parades a certificate that it was plainly told was invalid.
It is impossible to shame PFOX, because the group is shameless.
** PFOX is also fudging its DC credentials in its attempt to access taxpayer money through the World Bank. In reality, PFOX is not even close to DC. Its headquarters is in Reedville, VA — 127 miles and a two hour and forty minute drive southeast of the nation’s capitol. To be listed as a charity an organziation has to have “a substantial local presence in the Greater Washington metropolitan area.” No one familiar with the workings of this group can claim that PFOX has but minimal ties to the District.
