The head of a conservative U.S. lobbying group accused Newsday columnist Jimmy Breslin of making up quotes attributed to him in Wednesday's column.
The newspaper's editor said Breslin, a Pulitzer Prize winner, told him the quotes came from a 1992 interview and that it would have been better if the columnist had made that clear.
The Rev. Louis Sheldon, chairman of the Traditional Values Coalition, said he has "never met Jimmy Breslin, never had the conversation described in his column today and never said those sentences to anyone in my life."
In the column, Breslin wrote, " 'Homosexuals are dangerous,' Sheldon assured me one day. . . . 'They proselytize. They come to the door, and if your son answers and nobody is there to stop it, they grab the son and run off with him. They steal him. They take him away and turn him into a homosexual.' "
Sheldon said he has never said anything of the kind.