Family Groups Urge FOX NEWS to Provide Fair and Balanced News

Bill O'Reilly ignores repeated requests to drop SPLC's Wayne Besen from show

WASHINGTON, Oct. 3, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- In light of the attempted murder of employees at the Family Research Council (FRC), pro-family organizations led by Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays & Gays (PFOX) are asking Fox News to discontinue guest appearances by homosexual activist Wayne Besen on the O'Reilly Factor television show:  

"Fox News is reporting that Tony Perkins, FRC's President, blames the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and its rhetoric of hateful lies against FRC for helping to create a climate that led to shooter Floyd Corkins' actions.

The SPLC and Wayne Besen are united in demonizing conservative organizations and individuals.  Despite repeated complaints about Besen's appearances, producers of the O'Reilly Factor continue to feature Besen, a controversial homosexual activist aligned with the SPLC, as a guest commentator.

Last year Besen and SPLC jointly staged a protest outside of FRC's Values Voters conference, falsely accusing FRC of hatred and lies.  Besen labeled FRC's conservative speakers as 'certifiable lunatics with dangerous agendas.' Besen and the SPLC took out an ad in the Washington Post falsely blaming FRC for gays being more likely 'to be victimized by violent hate crimes' and 'driven to suicide by relentless bullying.' 

Besen and the SPLC also target the ex-gay community, claiming that ex-gays are not entitled to the same rights and respect that gays enjoy.  In a bizarre move, Besen and SPLC are now filing complaints against therapists who counsel homosexuals with unwanted same-sex attractions, thereby denying gays the right of therapeutic self-determination.

Condemnation of the SPLC's—and by extension Wayne Besen's—designation of pro-family groups as "hate groups" comes from both the political Right and Left. Rich Lowry of National Review wrote, 'The SPLC's promiscuous labeling of organizations it disagrees with as 'hate groups' came to the fore last week when someone tried to shoot up one of its targets.'

It is time that the O'Reilly Factor cease using Besen as a guest commentator. Providing Besen with a forum lends credibility to his pernicious tactics and the network becomes complicit in the damage done to the victims of Wayne Besen's and the SPLC's smear campaigns.

We ask the News Corporation, Fox News, and Bill O'Reilly to find more ethical spokespersons."   

Signed:  See http://pfox.org/Family-Groups-Urge-FOX-NEWS.html for list of organizations

CONTACT: Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays, +1-804-453-4737, pfox@pfox.org

SOURCE Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays & Gays (PFOX)