A homosexual activist who brought a defamation complaint against an advocacy organization that works with people who leave the same-sex lifestyle admitted to “self-aggrandizement” in court papers.
The admission came in a case brought by Wayne Besen, who runs the pro-homosexual Truth Wins Out organization online, against Parents and Friends of ExGays and Gays, or PFOX, and its president, Greg Quinlan.
PFOX reported that the federal judge tossed out the lawsuit by Besen. The case was prompted by Quinlan’s statements “that Besen had been fired from the Human Rights Campaign and had uttered hateful rhetoric against Quinlan because he disagreed with Quinlan’s ex-gay sexual orientation.”
The admission came just as the media furor over comments from another homosexual activist began to fade. In that case, Dan Savage, who runs the “It Gets Better” pro-homosexual organization, derided the Bible in an address to school students, telling them that society should ignore the “bull—-” in the Scriptures.
According to msnbc.com, his comments were, “We can learn to ignore the bull—- in the Bible about gay people the same way we have learned to ignore the bull—- about shellfish, about slavery, about dinner, about farming, about menstruation, about virginity, about masturbation. We ignore bull—- in the bible about all sorts of things. The Bible is a radically pro-slavery document.”
When some students in the assembly fled the bullying, he called their walkout “pansy—.”
He wrote in an alternative weekly in Seattle, “I wasn’t calling the handful of students who left pansies (2,800+ students, most of them Christian, stayed and listened), just the walkout itself.”
National Scholastic Press Association leaders, who set up the event, blasted him for belittling “the faith of others – an action that we do not support.”
In the arguments raised by Besen, PFOX reported that “Besen once told Quinlan in a private conversation that someone should run him over with a bus or inject him with AIDS.”
“Besen admitted that while he may be known among some gay rights activists circles, ‘most individuals on the street in the metropolitan Washington, D.C., area if asked if they had ever heard of [Besen] would respond with a resounding ‘no.'”
The argument would have been made in an attempt to have the judge determine Besen is not a public figure, which would have been to his benefit in a defamation argument.
“Besen likened his public persona to ‘notoriety in small circles,’ admitted to his ‘own promotional self-aggrandizement,’ indicated that the books he has written were of ‘likely limited circulation,’ and that he ‘might like to view [himself] as more well known that is actually the case,'” PFOX reported.
Matt Barber, an attorney and PFOX board member, said: “Filing frivolous lawsuits and abusing our judicial system seems to be a new tactic of radical homosexual activist pressure groups like Besen’s. They are desperate to silence the message of hope that there is freedom from unwanted same-sex attractions. It won’t work and, in the end, they only humiliate themselves and hurt what is already a lost cause. The science continues to mount against the false notion that people are ‘born gay.'”
When the case developed late last year, Quinlan said: “To harm Besen’s reputation, he would have to first have a reputation – a good one anyway. Nothing I could ever say would do more damage to Wayne’s reputation than he’s already done on his own. … This is the same Christian-hating Wayne Besen that once trespassed on a church property, placed a bullhorn to the window and began screaming through it while peaceful churchgoers prayed and worshiped inside. (And before he lodges another empty defamation threat, we have the video.)”
Quinlan continued: “This is the same Wayne Besen that once came to the Ex-Gay Educators Caucus exhibit booth during the NEA convention in Orlando, Florida, knocked brochures off the table and bullied the women at the booth. He also snapped their picture several times. After being politely asked to leave, Wayne refused and continued to intimidate and harass the women. We notified authorities that we were concerned he might become more violent. I stepped between Wayne and the women and he began screaming and cursing at me, dropping the ‘F bomb’ over and over. (Again, before he threatens another silly lawsuit; we have witnesses.)”
A commentary at the GCMWatch.com website, which monitors the homosexual movement, said Besen “takes great pain to keep all of us aware of just how important a public figure he is … by detailing his conquests.”
It also noted Besen filed the action even though state law grants Quinlan and other individuals immunity from civil lawsuit damages when they act without pay as an officer or director of a tax-exempt organization like PFOX. No one at PFOX is paid a salary.
“In the dog eat dog world of gay activism, it takes a lot to stand out in the crowded field of excessively narcissistic paranoia neurosis (sorry had to get it all in) activists,” the commentary said. “Our less than concerned suggestion: Besen should join forces with the West Coast self-aggrandized bully Dan Savage, scrap the ‘it gets better’ charade and be who they really are. Self inflated and self serving social bullies.”
On its website, Besen’s organization said it disagreed with the judge and that the ruling “does nothing to negate the original charge that PFOX’s Greg Quinlan fabricated two stories in an effort to smear Truth Wins Out and Besen.”
It described the case dismissal as being based “on a technicality.”
