Family Research Council leader caught w/ gay prostitute

[dreadgeek]

I know that this is going to come as a great shock to folks but George Alan Rekers, who is a co-founder of the Family Research Council was caught coming back from 10 day vacation with "Lucien" a young man he found on Rentboy.com. This has gotten so hilarious that I think that, in keeping with the 'man bites dog' definition of news, it should be on the front page, above the fold, with a banner headline when some prominent, anti-gay conservative ISN'T caught in a gay sex scandal!!!

All the juiciness (http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/05/anti-gay_leader_caught_with_gay_prostitute_pleads.php?r ef=fpa) here.

[Soon]

I was just reading all about it and was wondering if a thread should be started--thanks for starting this one.

I cannot believe that close to 100 000 of Florida taxpayer (and I just read Arkansas, too) money was given to him as the State's star (and only) witness in keeping the ban on gays from adopting.

I hope this hits mainstream news.


www.joemygod.blogspot.com is also doing a good job covering the various aspects of this story

[Apocalipstic]

Rentboy.com

lmao

[SuperFemme]

A gay male gigolo named Lucien?
Does it GET any better?

[dreadgeek]

Btw. here's a helpful little lexicon for understanding anti-gay conservatives:

How to speak anti-gay conservative:

Luggage: 'Package', 'bulge', that thing in your pants that shows you're happy to see him, genitalia
Carrying my luggage: Having a tight hold on said package
"Lovingly sharing the message of Jesus": Activity greatly enhanced by presence of poppers and KY Jelly
Baggage handler: Gym queen
Love the sinner: Something to do all night lonnnng
Jesus: A baggage handler from Latin America
Message of Jesus: Bring lube
Surgery: Pleasurable activity involving luggage

[Soon]

From what I am reading, Rekers, who testifies to disallow LGBT folks from being able to adopt, has, allegedly (I cannot verify this, yet), adopted a sixteen year old boy (as a single man from what I understand) who is now the same age as *Lucien* the paid escort from rentboy.



The Family Research Council (of which he co-founded with Dobson) has already scrubbed his name from their website.

News Source that broke the story:
From Miami New Times: (http://www.miaminewtimes.com/2010-05-06/news/christian-right-leader-george-rekers-takes-vacation-with-rent-boy/1)

For decades, George Alan Rekers has been a general in the culture wars, though his work has often been behind the scenes. In 1983, he and James Dobson, America's best-known homophobe, formed the Family Research Council, a D.C.-based, rabidly Christian, and vehemently anti-gay lobbying group that has become a standard-bearer of the nation's extreme right wing. Its annual Values Summit is considered a litmus test for Republican presidential hopefuls, and Sean Hannity and Ann Coulter have spoken there. (The Family Research Council would not comment about Rekers's Euro-trip.)

He has also influenced American government, serving in advisory roles with Congress, the White House, and the Department of Health and Human Services and testifying as a state's witness in favor of Florida's gay adoption ban. A former research fellow at Harvard University and a distinguished professor of neuropsychiatry at the University of South Carolina, Rekers has published papers and books by the hundreds, with titles like Who Am I? Lord and Growing Up Straight: What Families Should Know About Homosexuality.

"While he keeps a low public profile, his fingerprints are on almost every anti-gay effort to demean and dehumanize LGBT people," says Wayne Besen, a gay rights advocate in New York City and the executive director of Truth Wins Out, which investigates the anti-gay movement. "His work is ubiquitously cited by lobby groups that work to deny equality to LGBT Americans. Rekers has caused a great deal of harm to gay and lesbian individuals."

[PearlsNLace]

This is not crap that helps us. By us, I mean queer community that needs to be recognized with rights for protections, marriage, immigration, adoption, all that.

This is the kind of crap that makes us look worse even.

Cause its not about a story of us in loving relationships, its not a story about who we really are.

Its a story about how the conservatives accuse us to be. It pisses me off.

I mean, certainly, sometimes we are just looking for some hot body on a boat. Hell yeah. House bois free to apply via pm.

However... we are MORE than this.

I hope Im making myself clear.

[Soon]

This is not crap that helps us. By us, I mean queer community that needs to be recognized with rights for protections, marriage, immigration, adoption, all that.

This is the kind of crap that makes us look worse even.

Cause its not about a story of us in loving relationships, its not a story about who we really are.

Its a story about how the conservatives accuse us to be. It pisses me off.

I mean, certainly, sometimes we are just looking for some hot body on a boat. Hell yeah. House bois free to apply via pm.

However... we are MORE than this.

I hope Im making myself clear.

I don't look at it like this at all. He is not representative of WE or US.

He is man who has been exposed as a fraud and his hateful, anti-gay work can now be seen as charade and, perhaps, a projection of his own self-loathing.

I see this as example of what happens when you are so closeted that you have to sneak around (not that out people don't hire escorts) and make up half-assed answers (luggage handler! proselytizing!) as to why you are on vacation with an escort from rentboy.

I don't think this makes US look bad; I think it makes the Right Wingers look like hypocritical, self-haters.

[dreadgeek]

This is not crap that helps us. By us, I mean queer community that needs to be recognized with rights for protections, marriage, immigration, adoption, all that.

This is the kind of crap that makes us look worse even.

Cause its not about a story of us in loving relationships, its not a story about who we really are.

Its a story about how the conservatives accuse us to be. It pisses me off.

I mean, certainly, sometimes we are just looking for some hot body on a boat. Hell yeah. House bois free to apply via pm.

However... we are MORE than this.

I hope Im making myself clear.

No, actually, I don't get it. This guy has spent the term of his adult life trying to screw over the gay community. He's now been hoist by his own petard. I think this is VERY good for us because every one of these stories demonstrates, empirically, viscerally and in a way no one can deny, that each time these yahoos say 'gay people are like this' or 'gay people do that' or 'gay people are a threat because of this' they are projecting out of their OWN fantasies, fears and desires. How does this guy, co-founder of one of the largest, most influential, anti-gay groups in the country, being shown for the utter self-hating hypocrite that he is NOT help us?

[Apocalipstic]

See for me, this shows hypocrisy, not how gays live.

[SuperFemme]

I think it helps us a TON when shit like this happens.

This man is one of the largest proponents of Gay Reparative Therapy.

Meaning that he has been telling the world, the courts and the White House how our *lifestyle* is a *choice*. We can be cured of our sinful choices by way of Jesus according to him.

Let's call this what it is shall we? Yet more proof that we are normal as is and the people who use us for personal and political gain are shameful hypocrites.

[SuperFemme]

Heterosexual people don't have thousands of websites selling sex?

I don't feel overshadowed.
I feel more normalized.

[Nat]

Fascinating! No matter how many times this type of story repeats - still fascinating.

[Apocalipstic]

Fascinating! No matter how many times this type of story repeats - still fascinating.

And it does seem to repeat an awful lot.

One would think that at some point it would seem foolish to openly oppose Queer Rights, when One is in fact Gay.

But.

One would think a lot of things.....

[Soon]

ProfessorGeorge.Com (http://www.professorgeorge.com/ProfessorGeorge.com/Welcome_to_ProfessorGeorge.com.html)

***MISLEADING INTERNET REPORTS ABOUT PROFESSOR GEORGE REKERS***
A recent article in an alternative newspaper cleverly gave false impressions of inappropriate behavior because of its misleading innuendo, incorrectly implying that Professor George Rekers used the Rentboy website to hire a prostitute to accompany him on a recent trip. Contrary to Internet stories based on this slanderous article, following medical advice Professor George Rekers requires an assistant to lift his luggage in his travels because of an ongoing condition following surgery. His family, local friends, and even another university professor colleague have offered to accompany him on trips to lift luggage. Professor Rekers was not involved in any illegal or sexual behavior with his travel assistant.


****************

So, he had all these people to help with his luggage but he went through rentboy?

This is what Rekers admitted to Joe Jervis (www.joemygodblogspot.com) (of joemygod, YESTERDAY): So what was it luggage boy or trying to reform a rentboy?


NARTH and Family Research Council co-founder Dr. George Rekers has responded to my inquiry about where to find the hottest male prostitutes.

After the above, he continues:

I have spent much time as a mental health professional and as a Christian minister helping and lovingly caring for people identifying themselves as “gay.” My hero is Jesus Christ who loves even the culturally despised people, including sexual sinners and prostitutes. Like Jesus Christ, I deliberately spend time with sinners with the loving goal to try to help them. Mark 2:16-17 reads, “16When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the "sinners" and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: "Why does he eat with tax collectors and 'sinners'?" 17On hearing this, Jesus said to them, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners." In fact, in a dialogue with hypocritical religious leaders, Jesus even stated to them, "I tell you the truth, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you. 32For John came to you to show you the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes did. And even after you saw this, you did not repent and believe him. " (Matthew 21:31).

Like John the Baptist and Jesus, I have a loving Christian ministry to homosexuals and prostitutes in which I share the Good News of Jesus Christ with them (see I Corinthians 6:8-11). Contrary to false gossip, innuendo, and slander about me, I do not in any way “hate” homosexuals, but I seek to lovingly share two types of messages to them, as I did with the young man called “Lucien” in the news story: [1] It is possible to cease homosexual practices to avoid the unacceptable health risks associated with that behavior, and [2] the most important decision one can make is to establish a relationship with God for all eternity by trusting in Jesus Christ’s sacrifice on the cross for the forgiveness of your sins, including homosexual sins. If you talk with my travel assistant that the story called “Lucien,” you will find I spent a great deal of time sharing scientific information on the desirability of abandoning homosexual intercourse, and I shared the Gospel of Jesus Christ with him in great detail.

[SuperFemme]

I didn't know the Miami New Times was an alternative paper.

Also, as you can see in the pictures, the good professor seems to handling his OWN luggage AND his companions.

[Soon]

http://www.facebook.com/AskMcCollum


Demand Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum's explanation for spending $87,000 of taxpayer money on "expert" testimony from a closeted patron of male "rentboys." Comment on his FB page http://bit.ly/cnPh8i (they keep deleting comments) or call his office at 850-414-3990.



Danny Collins How can you possibly justify paying this closeted homophobic individual $87,000 to condemn fine gay couples who simply want to give unwanted children a good loving home when this guy is using the taxpayers money for male prostitutes and telling such obvious lies about baggage handers???? Have you no shame at all?

[Apocalipstic]

I sometimes have a problem with my luggage, I get a little cart thing, not a rentaboy.

wow.

[SuperFemme]

I sometimes have a problem with my luggage, I get a little cart thing, not a rentaboy.

wow.

i guess we should do things differently.

[Apocalipstic]

i guess we should do things differently.

I guess I will have to take Cynthia with me when I travel...you know, just to "carry" things.

[Rufusboi]

I know that this is going to come as a great shock to folks but George Alan Rekers, who is a co-founder of the Family Research Council was caught coming back from 10 day vacation with "Lucien" a young man he found on Rentboy.com. This has gotten so hilarious that I think that, in keeping with the 'man bites dog' definition of news, it should be on the front page, above the fold, with a banner headline when some prominent, anti-gay conservative ISN'T caught in a gay sex scandal!!!

All the juiciness (http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/05/anti-gay_leader_caught_with_gay_prostitute_pleads.php?r ef=fpa) here.


Well like you, I greet the news with a big yawn. So what's new in the anti gay ultra conservative christian fundamentalist community? Same old scandal new rent boy. Hypocrisy justs turns my stomach.

Rufus

[Soon]

It made The Washington Post. (http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2010/05/family-research-council-head-h.html)

I thought maybe news agencies weren't going to run the story.

[SuperFemme]

It made The Washington Post. (http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2010/05/family-research-council-head-h.html)

I thought maybe news agencies weren't going to run the story.

Oh goodie!

Though some conservatives may consider the Post an alternative paper,
it's clear they've done their fact checking.

[dreadgeek]

I don't think it helps us overall. I think while it does shine a light on the hypocrisy, it also looks like "we're" all a bunch of pervs out to get laid (SHUT UP SNOW!).

It feels to me like it erases the 'normality' of my actual life. My personal family values.

Don't get me wrong, this kind of stuff enrages me, but it also feels like it gets more attention than those of us who just go about our daily lives, working, being parents, paying taxes, being good human beings.

June;

You're absolutely correct, this kind of stuff DOES get more attention than those of us who go about our daily lives, working, paying taxes and being good human beings. I would submit to you, dear friend, that in fact this is a GOOD thing. Go back to my invocation of the journalism school "dog bites man isn't news, but man bites dog is news". I would rather live in a world where my getting up and going to work and then going to class and then dragging my tired butch ass home is a case of the dog biting than man, than of the man biting the dog. I submit that, in case, the reason why you don't hear much about this queer people who go about living their ordinary lives is *because* they are ordinary lives.

My sister getting up and going to work everyday is about as newsworthy as the fact that the Sun rose in the East this morning. Your getting up and going to work everyday is as newsworthy as my sister doing so. It would be a sad sign indeed if, in fact, we got noticed for doing ordinary things because it would mean one of two things: either people don't expect us to have ordinary lives, in which case our doing so becomes news or we, as a group, really *don't* have ordinary, mundane lives. Given the choice, which would you want--to be treated like any other citizen, a curiosity or the exception to the rule?

Cheers
Aj

[dreadgeek]

It made The Washington Post. (http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2010/05/family-research-council-head-h.html)

I thought maybe news agencies weren't going to run the story.

NPR has also picked up the story. Now, I'm sure that they'll close ranks, he'll continue to deny for a week, then he will be quietly shuffled off the stage when it's clear that all his denials aren't working.

You'd think that almost 40 years after Watergate these jokers would realize that's it NEVER the crime that causes you the most trouble, it's the coverup.

Aj

[Soon]

Baptist minister 'took ten-day holiday with male prostitute' (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article7117037.ece)

A Baptist minister and leading anti-gay activist faced the ruination of his career yesterday after being photographed returning from a European holiday with a male prostitute.

George Rekers, who sits on the board of a national organisation dedicated to changing the sexuality of gay men and lesbians, hired a companion from a website called Rentboy.com that offers clients a wide range of choices, from “rentboy” and “sugar daddy” to “masseur”.

Dr Rekers said he took the prostitute on the ten-day trip last month to London and Madrid as a travel assistant after a stint in hospital. “I had surgery,” he said when approached this week by the Miami New Times. “I can’t lift luggage. That’s why I hired him.” Photographs of the pair emerging from Miami international airport last month show the older man pushing their suitcases on a trolley.

Dr Rekers’s companion has been identified as a 20-year-old Puerto Rican whose entry on the Rentboy.com website gives his name as “Geo”. The site says that he is “sensual”, “wild” and “up for anything”. It also describes him as “versatile”, with a “nice ass”.

Contacted this week by reporters in Miami, he said he was surprised by Dr Rekers’s claim to have realised he was a prostitute only halfway through their holiday.

Geo’s profile on Rentboy.com is a bewildering mix of the banal and the specific. “I’m a college guy, masculine, educated, really easy going,” he says. “Great to get along with, can hold a conversation.” He lists stripping and go-go dancing among his talents. “I will do anything you say as long as you ask,” he promises.

Dr Rekers, who co-founded America’s most powerful Christian lobbying group, has testified as an expert in favour of bans on gay adoption in Florida and Arkansas. He has also written numerous books on homosexuality as a curable condition, including Growing Up Straight: What Families Should Know about Homosexuality.

Gay rights advocates called yesterday for him to step down from the board of the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (Narth), for which he lectures across the world. He is also closely linked with the Washington-based Family Research Council, which he founded with Dr James Dobson in 1983.

In an e-mailed response to questions about the European trip, he said: “My hero is Jesus Christ who loves even the culturally despised people, including sexual sinners and prostitutes. Like Jesus Christ, I deliberately spend time with sinners with the loving goal to try to help them.”

Dr Rekers also told a blogger who reached him via Facebook: “If you talk with my travel assistant . . . you will find I spent a great deal of time sharing scientific information on the desirability of abandoning homosexual intercourse, and I shared the gospel of Jesus Christ with him in great detail.”

In 2006 Ted Haggard resigned as a leader of the National Association of Evangelicals after a male prostitute claimed to have had sex with him for three years.

Ray Ashburn, a California state senator with a long record of opposing gay rights, was arrested and charged with drunk-driving this year while leaving a gay nightclub in Sacramento. In 1988 Jimmy Swaggart, one of America’s most successful televangelists, was found to have had regular paid sex with prostitutes.

Do as I say ...

• The televangelist Pat Robertson caused outrage when he said that the Haiti earthquake was caused by “a pact to the Devil” sworn by Haitians when they became independent of French rule

• Matt Baker, a Texan minister, was convicted of faking his wife’s suicide in 2009 so that he could have a relationship with a member of his church

• Kent Hovind, a creationist minister with his own dinosaur theme park in Florida, was sentenced to ten years in jail for falsely declaring bankruptcy and threatening investigators in 2006 Hovind paid employees in cash, claiming that they were all workers of God and therefore exempt from taxes

• The TV minister Jim Bakker shocked viewers of his television series when it emerged that he had had an affair with a secretary, paying her off with church funds. He was jailed in 1989 for fraud after paying himself and his wife, Tammy Faye, below, millions of dollars in church funds and concocting a timeshare scam at his theme park in South Carolina

Sources: ABC; AP; BBC; Time; Times archives

[apretty]

not sure if this was already posted, but it's the ad with pic.

(he sure is cute, but doesn't look like he could carry that much luggage...)

http://www.truthwinsout.org/blog/2010/05/8591/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=facebook

[Soon]

http://vvoice.vo.llnwd.net/e9/4767698.28.jpg

[Martina]

i don't claim this guy with any pride -- or bother to claim him at all since he denies he's gay.

But i don't CARE if he makes us look bad. i'd rather be associated with someone who -- honestly -- makes use of rentboy.com than the soccer moms that organizations like the Lesbian and Gay Task Force put forward to represent us.

i am FINE with our looking slutty. i don't pander to the prejudices of people already inclined to dislike me.

So that Florida state senator was caught looking at porn during an abortion debate, and his excuse is he was bored. lol. Ironies on top of ironies. But i don't think anyone is rushing to condemn white men for being porn addicts or whatever.

The fact is i do not live my life worrying about what middle American might think. i know they don't have my best interest at heart.

[Hack]

It always interests me from a public relations standpoint (since that's my profession) the lengths that the conservatives and homophobes go to lie their way to "the truth." First rule in political PR, which is my specialty, is when you are in a situation like this, tell the truth. Spin never works for sexual orientation, marital infidelity (witness John Edwards) or money issues. The truth works great. It's sad to me that they have to lie. Think of the hate we could erase if they would just do the right thing -- the Christian thing -- and tell the truth. If you haven't watched the documentary "Outrage," I recommend it.

[apretty]

i can totally see june's point but i *don't* see this false-individual as 'one of us', people i know don't build their lives around hatred and bullshit and get *caught* hiring escorts.

what i mean is, i see him as a *fraud* not someone who can't/wouldn't just 'be gay' i think of him as along the lines of someone that works with animals and abuses them on the side--or any kind of person living a total life of hypocrisy, for me, that means that i don't think he's now 'gay' i think at some point he began to fetishize what for him must be a 'life style' and spent his life working out his shit in/on the public (vs private, constructive therapy), which make his *secret* trysts all that more enjoyable, for him--nevermind the total destruction he causes in real, actual gay peoples' lives.

again, i get what you mean when you say people see this and think x = GAY! how bizarre their behavior! ...i only hope people separate those individuals from the people like you or *most* of us who can go an entire life time without renting someone for sex or belonging to an organization that tries to subvert our inner-most and all-consuming 'desire'.

the thing with these guys, i think demonizing their own desire plays a crucial role in their fucking, and i just think that i didn't sign up to be in their dynamic, it lacks consent (yet they play it out in public!) which goes light years beyond just being false, wrong and a big ol' lie.

-i hope this makes sense, i'm in a bit of a rush and will gladly respond later to anything i've been unclear on, which includes context and sentence fragments!! :)

[Hack]

i can totally see june's point but i *don't* see this false-individual as 'one of us', people i know don't build their lives around hatred and bullshit and get *caught* hiring escorts.

what i mean is, i see him as a *fraud* not someone who can't/wouldn't just 'be gay' i think of him as along the lines of someone that works with animals and abuses them on the side--or any kind of person living a total life of hypocrisy, for me, that means that i don't think he's now 'gay' i think at some point he began to fetishize what for him must be a 'life style' and spent his life working out his shit in/on the public (vs private, constructive therapy), which make his *secret* trysts all that more enjoyable, for him--nevermind the total destruction he causes in real, actual gay peoples' lives.

again, i get what you mean when you say people see this and think x = GAY! how bizarre their behavior! ...i only hope people separate those individuals from the people like you or *most* of us who can go an entire life time without renting someone for sex or belonging to an organization that tries to subvert our inner-most and all-consuming 'desire'.

the thing with these guys, i think demonizing their own desire plays a crucial role in their fucking, and i just think that i didn't sign up to be in their dynamic, it lacks consent (yet they play it out in public!) which goes light years beyond just being false, wrong and a big ol' lie.

-i hope this makes sense, i'm in a bit of a rush and will gladly respond later to anything i've been unclear on, which includes context and sentence fragments!! :)

I agree with you. It boggles my mind how much this guy, and others like him, must hate themselves to live and act like they do. I don't feel scorn as much as I feel sorry for him, in a way, you know? Maybe that's too generous or humanist of me. But still.

[Soon]

Teen Sex Today by Professor George (http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=14543395766&v=wall&ref=search)

[Martina]

i can totally see june's point but i *don't* see this false-individual as 'one of u ...i only hope people separate those individuals from the people like you or *most* of us who can go an entire life time without renting someone for sex

i have never paid for sex, but if it's an us vs them thing, i am on the side of those who have paid for it vs those who judge others for having done it.

i sends chills up me to be considered one of "us" if "us" means those who have proudly never paid for sex. Sure prostitution everywhere has its ills. But i am so not going to judge either people who have used the services of sex workers or sex workers themselves.

[MsMerrick]

not sure if this was already posted, but it's the ad with pic.

(he sure is cute, but doesn't look like he could carry that much luggage...)

http://www.truthwinsout.org/blog/2010/05/8591/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=facebook

And Un CUt..! I mean, that kind of seals the deal, doncha think ?

[Martina]

Another quick response. Witch hunts against gay men have used prostitution laws as tools. We all know that.

One of the best essays i have read about being femme was by a sex worker who felt NO solidarity with us until she read an article by Joan Nestle about her straight slutty mom.

i so stand with sex workers if there is some line drawn in the sand between acceptable-to-straight-folks gay people and everyone else.

Didn't HIV activism teach us anything??

[Cyclopea]

he's not sleeping with the hookers, he orders them up and then tries to save their souls, one by one..... ;)

[PearlsNLace]

I certainly dont see this person as "one of us"

Im thinking about the conservative lunatics I went to high school with, and are on my facebook.

What I have learned from them is this. They will not see that there is a difference between this person and us.

They see this person as an example of why we dont deserve the things we are fighting for. Because when creatins like this make the news, that is all my conservative aquaintances see.

[Martina]

Guess what? He probably IS one of us. Just like Roy Cohn was. We can claim him AND know him for what he is -- ever see Angels in America?

Hey, we don't get to choose.

And conservatives hate sex and complexity and will see what they want to see. Can we worry about that? Is it good to rewrite history and ignore the truth out of fear that they might think something they already want to believe?

[Mitmo01]

people like this guy and ted hagard and the myriad of other hypocrites in the world deserve this shit and deserve everything else coming thier way....

these kinds of hypocrites are what "outing" is all about and if they didnt learn from groups like act-up and queer nation then woe is them because people love nothing more than to knock hypocrites like this piece of shit off of their proverbial fucking high horse....these people are leading a movement of hate and vitriol not only here but now they do it in Uganda, other parts of africa etc.....its disgusting and what a better and fitting end to a piece of shit like this...now maybe he will shut his mouth and crawl into the ground

this asshat is proclaiming so much hatred and bullshit like reparative therapy etc that he deserves to have the world come crashing down

some rich gay or lesbian should put their money where their mouth is like larry flynt did when the conservative movement was busting out all of the cheating politicians in washington...he put up a million dollars to anyone who could provide evidence of republican politicians who were cheating on thier wives etc....and oh how the mighty fell....Henry Hyde,, poof busted out...evan bayah...busted etc the list was long and Larry Flynt put his money where his mouth is...

bust wide out all of those lying cheating hypocrites spouting off thier hatred and bullshit and let the world see how they really are....these fuckers telling gay and lesbians how to turn themselves straight while they go do some rails of crystal meth and get serviced by rent boys

fuck that and keep busting out those pieces of shit

i hope the rent boy goes on oprah lol

[Soon]

i hope the rent boy goes on oprah lol

Escort Revealed in Rekers Scandal -- The Advocate (http://www.advocate.com/News/Daily_News/2010/05/05/Escort_in_Rekers_Scandal_Revealed/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+AdvocatecomDailyNews+(Advocate. com+Daily+News)&utm_content=Google+Reader)

<snip>

Reached Tuesday afternoon by phone, a man purporting to be Roman repeatedly declined to discuss any details of being hired by Rekers for a recent 10-day trip to Madrid and London. “I don’t think people realize how serious this has gotten, and I would have talked about this had my privacy been respected,” Roman said, referring to his Rentboy.com profile, which was posted Tuesday byUnzipped, followed by several gay blogs.

“There’s absolutely nothing else I can say,” Roman added.


-----


In a Wednesday statement on his website, Rekers referred to Roman — known on his Rentboy profile as “Geo” and as “Mark” on a profile on Men4RentNow.com — as his “travel assistant” who was hired “to lift his luggage in his travels because of an ongoing condition following surgery.”

“A recent article in an alternative newspaper cleverly gave false impressions of inappropriate behavior because of its misleading innuendo, incorrectly implying that Professor George Rekers used the Rentboy website to hire a prostitute to accompany him on a recent trip,” the statement read. “Dr. Rekers found his recent travel assistant by interviewing acquaintances, and only found out about his travel assistant’s alleged prostitution activity and Internet advertisements during the trip. There was nothing inappropriate with this relationship. Professor Rekers was not involved in any illegal or sexual behavior with his travel assistant."

The Miami New Times broke the story in a Tuesdayarticle, referring to the escort using the pseudonym “Lucien.” The story was quickly followed in the LGBT media and mainstream outlets, including CBS News and TheWashington Post.

Despite his statement, Rekers intimated in a Tuesday message via Facebook toJoe.My.Godblogger Joe Jervis that he had hired the escort as part of his ongoing Christian ministry. Rekers said he shared “scientific information on the desirability of abandoning homosexual intercourse” with the young man whom he had hired.

“Like Jesus Christ, I deliberately spend time with sinners with the loving goal to try to help them,” Rekers wrote.

.........

[apretty]

i have never paid for sex, but if it's an us vs them thing, i am on the side of those who have paid for it vs those who judge others for having done it.

i sends chills up me to be considered one of "us" if "us" means those who have proudly never paid for sex. Sure prostitution everywhere has its ills. But i am so not going to judge either people who have used the services of sex workers or sex workers themselves.

i don't think paying for sex is the biggest crime out there, i hope that was evident in the rest of my post--a higher crime is hypocrisy and trying to *reform* gays, to be clear.

i didn't read my post as othering sex workers, but okay.

[DamonK]

What's sad is I HAD to go check out that website... rentboy.com

I'm curious like that. Can't give me a site name that makes me laugh and not have me check it out.

[JustJo]

“Like Jesus Christ, I deliberately spend time with sinners with the loving goal to try to help them,” Rekers wrote.

.........

Wow...so now he's like Jesus? I must have missed that part during bible study...:sunglass:

[The_Lady_Snow]

Contrary to false gossip, innuendo, and slander about me, I do not in any way "hate" homosexuals, but I seek to lovingly share two types of messages to them, as I did with the young man called "Lucien" in the news story: [1] It is possible to cease homosexual practices to avoid the unacceptable health risks associated with that behavior, and [2] the most important decision one can make is to establish a relationship with God for all eternity by trusting in Jesus Christ's sacrifice on the cross for the forgiveness of your sins, including homosexual sins.


I wonder how he was able to do all this as he sucked his *assistants* dick...

What an ass hat!

Jesus told me to kick a juice box off his neck....

[SuperFemme]

Contrary to false gossip, innuendo, and slander about me, I do not in any way "hate" homosexuals, but I seek to lovingly share two types of messages to them, as I did with the young man called "Lucien" in the news story: [1] It is possible to cease homosexual practices to avoid the unacceptable health risks associated with that behavior, and [2] the most important decision one can make is to establish a relationship with God for all eternity by trusting in Jesus Christ's sacrifice on the cross for the forgiveness of your sins, including homosexual sins.


I wonder how he was able to do all this as he sucked his *assistants* dick...

What an ass hat!

Jesus told me to kick a juice box off his neck....

Yeah. I'm surprised he didn't cite *gay bowel disease*. Because being gay is only a behavior after all.

Sigh.

[Mitmo01]

"In my opinion, that fucker has blood on his hands for all the "Good Works" he has done."

well said June him and many others have blood on their hands.......and i hope everyone of these fuckin evangelists or whatever the fuck they call themselves gets caught out in the open.....outing started out for this reason and more of them should have to face this justice imho.....

[SuperFemme]

Isn't our community having a slut night something that would totally FREAK out an outsider? I'd hate to be judged for that one night.

I can see all the points, but I still don't know that it causes those of us who live a normal life (whatever that means) erasure or invisibility.

I'm willing to learn though.

Off to ponder.

[SuperFemme]

We do the same things as straight people, we just do it Queer and that's (apparently) a problem for Jesus (according to 'them'). We just get more NEGATIVE attention when we do it.

I agree and I suppose that is the sad, sad crux of the issue.

[Nat]

I am so not an expert in psychological theory, but my understanding of Jung's "shadow aspect" is that people tend to take the things they dislike about themselves and try to reject those things. But they can't really eradicate those qualities within themselves - they can only repress them.

From wikipedia - because I'm an intellectual like that -

According to Jung, the shadow, in being instinctive and irrational, is prone to project: turning a personal inferiority into a perceived moral deficiency in someone else. Jung writes that if these projections are unrecognized "The projection-making factor (the Shadow archetype) then has a free hand and can realize its object--if it has one--or bring about some other situation characteristic of its power." These projections insulate and cripple individuals by forming an ever thicker fog of illusion between the ego and the real world.


I do wish Jung hadn't used images of dark and light to make his point, but I do think he has a point that the things you repress/despise in yourself get projected onto others. I think it goes along with that saying, "The things you despise most in others are the things you despise most in yourself."

[UofMfan]

I thought this was funny and worth a look.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/06/colbert-rips-anti-gay-act_n_565763.html

[Diva]

I am so not an expert in psychological theory, but my understanding of Jung's "shadow aspect" is that people tend to take the things they dislike about themselves and try to reject those things. But they can't really eradicate those qualities within themselves - they can only repress them.

From wikipedia - because I'm an intellectual like that -

According to Jung, the shadow, in being instinctive and irrational, is prone to project: turning a personal inferiority into a perceived moral deficiency in someone else. Jung writes that if these projections are unrecognized "The projection-making factor (the Shadow archetype) then has a free hand and can realize its object--if it has one--or bring about some other situation characteristic of its power." These projections insulate and cripple individuals by forming an ever thicker fog of illusion between the ego and the real world.


I do wish Jung hadn't used images of dark and light to make his point, but I do think he has a point that the things you repress/despise in yourself get projected onto others. I think it goes along with that saying, "The things you despise most in others are the things you despise most in yourself."


It all began with Shakespeare, didn't it? ~ when he wrote something along the lines of: "Methinks thou doth protest too much."

I think it was Shakespeare....

EDITED: I had to go look...yes on the Shakespeare, from Hamlet: The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

[JustJo]

Isn't our community having a slut night something that would totally FREAK out an outsider? I'd hate to be judged for that one night.


I hear what you're saying SuperFemme....I guess the main difference for me is that, while carrying on at slut night (don't giggle Scoote...that's a hypothetical) I wouldn't also be telling other people how they should live, testifying in court, and offering myself as an expert. In my view, the only thing this twit is an expert on is hypocrisy.

Frankly, if he were living as a private person, minding his own business and letting others live the way they want to, then he can hire all the rent-boys or whatever he likes, and do whatever he wants. I won't judge...and truly don't care. He can be open about his lifestyle, keep it a secret, whatever....his call.

It's when people try to tell me how to live, legislate my morality and judge me...while acting hypocritically...that I get a little ticked off. Actually, more than a little. I'm glad he's getting a nice dose of public humiliation. He's earned it. I feel a bit bad for the escort, who didn't ask for this kind of publicity. But as far as Rekers goes...I'm ready to hold the juice box on his neck so Lady Snow can get a really good shot.

[Diva]

I thought this was funny and worth a look.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/06/colbert-rips-anti-gay-act_n_565763.html



Did I happen to mention that this Rekers guy looks frightening similar to my Christian fundamentalist ex~husband?

:|

I know.

[Nat]

It all began with Shakespeare, didn't it? ~ when he wrote something along the lines of: "Methinks thou doth protest too much."

I think it was Shakespeare....

EDITED: I had to go look...yes on the Shakespeare, from Hamlet: The lady doth protest too much, methinks.




Exactly - what surprises me more is that people who really are straight would, say, go to such lengths to oppress gays.

What makes a person shape their entire life around gay people, what the gays are doing, how bad the gays are, etc? I think it's gotta be a pretty short list of motivations.

[rockybcn]

Exactly - what surprises me more is that people who really are straight would, say, go to such lengths to oppress gays.

What makes a person shape their entire life around gay people, what the gays are doing, how bad the gays are, etc? I think it's gotta be a pretty short list of motivations.

I rather imagine its a superb money maker. Many church leaders are looking to have a sinful "cause" for the vast majority to rally against. This keeps the folks in attendance at churches and listening on the airways with donations galore. NO ONE has to look at their own sins when the majority is rallied together with a greater sin to combat. "Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? Matthew 7:3

[The_Lady_Snow]

'WBWJR -- What Boy Would Jesus Rent?'


http://tpmlivewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/05/colbert-on-rev-rekers-good-christians-always-ask-wbwjr----what-boy-would-jesus-rent-video.php?ref=mp

[Soon]

The Gist: Michael Signorile

Interview: Joe Jervis
This is my interview from yesterday with Joe Jervis of JoeMyGod on his great coverage of the George "Rentboy" Rekers scandal.
(http://www.signorile.com/2010/05/interview-joe-jervis.html)

[JustJo]

Okay...I'm sorry....but this just made me giggle :giggle:

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/profile.php?id=100001082011009&ref=search&sid=675532170.1207277030..1

[Soon]

George Rekers Is a Homosexual, Escort Says (http://blogs.miaminewtimes.com/riptide/2010/05/george_rekers_is_a_homosexual_says_escort.php)

​The male escort hired by anti-gay activist George Alan Rekers has told Miami New Times the Baptist minister is a homosexual who paid him to provide body rubs once a day in the nude, during their ten-day vacation in Europe.

Rekers allegedly named his favorite maneuver the "long stroke" -- a complicated caress "across his penis, thigh... and his anus over the butt cheeks," as the escort puts it. "Rekers liked to be rubbed down there," he says.

In his first interview since New Times broke the story Tuesday, the 20-year-old escort, who prefers to go by the name Lucien, contradicts Rekers's contentions that he hired the escort to help carry his luggage and that he was trying to save the soul of a lost sinner.

Although Rekers does have physical ailments that make it difficult for him to haul suitcases, Lucien wasn't hired to carry luggage on their European vacation, the escort says.

"It's a situation where he's going against homosexuality when he is a homosexual," Lucien says.

[Soon]

JMG Readers Shut Down Florida AG Bill McCollum's Facebook Campaign Page
(http://www.joemygod.blogspot.com/)

Thanks to the thousands of you that heeded my call to visit Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum's gubernatorial campaign Facebook page, the page's administrators have repeatedly closed it down, wiping out all of the entries demanding his response to the Rekers scandal. My outclick tracker thingy tells me that 22,441 of you hit his page in the last 24 hours and I thank all 22,441 of you beautiful people, whether you left him a message or not. And big thanks to Michelanglo Signorile, who yesterday sent his listeners there too. We've gotten McCollum's attention, that much is certain.

Today we're waiting for a response from the Florida Department of Children and Families, to whom McCollum's office yesterday passed the buck regarding the $87,000 payment to Dr. George Rekers so he could continue his campaign to rip apart Florida's gay families.

[Soon]

Anti-Gay Hypocrite is News Because of His Activism (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/vp/37031183#37031183)

[Toughy]

This is probably a derail, but since 'Slut Night' was brought up, I thought perhaps those who don't know, should know where that came from. This will be the short and sweet version.

ButchFemme Socials of Oakland/San Francisco has been doing Socials for over 10 years now. In Oakland, we originally did them at the White Horse (fondly know as 'the Ho'). At one of our first Socials, one of the femmes in attendance had on a black form fitting dress that could have been a slip. She went to the bar to get a cocktail and the old gay man bartender told her she needed to put some clothes on.....that she was dressed inappropriately. She came over to me and said that man had insulted her and hurt her feelings......well......... laughin.....that set me off and I ended up threatening to strip down to my boxers (with all the butches behind me)...which I wasn't wearing........long story short....one of the femmes said 'if he thinks that is slutty, we can show him slutty'......and Slut Night was born.

The first Slut Night was held for the next social at the Ho and the femmes came in all their slut finery.......corsets, garters, etc.......a tradition was born and continues to this day at various times across the country.

-------
I got nothing but disgust for hypocrisy.

[Toughy]

miss juney da poodle...........

I know nothin about no 'long strokin'....nothin... :riding2:

and just so ya know.....that femme who was in the inappropriate dress is a PhD professor of economics at a 'prestigious' college somewhere in the US..........

we got us some smart sluts around here...........

[Rufusboi]

Baptist minister 'took ten-day holiday with male prostitute' (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article7117037.ece)

A Baptist minister and leading anti-gay activist faced the ruination of his career yesterday after being photographed returning from a European holiday with a male prostitute.

George Rekers, who sits on the board of a national organisation dedicated to changing the sexuality of gay men and lesbians, hired a companion from a website called Rentboy.com that offers clients a wide range of choices, from “rentboy” and “sugar daddy” to “masseur”.

Dr Rekers said he took the prostitute on the ten-day trip last month to London and Madrid as a travel assistant after a stint in hospital. “I had surgery,” he said when approached this week by the Miami New Times. “I can’t lift luggage. That’s why I hired him.” Photographs of the pair emerging from Miami international airport last month show the older man pushing their suitcases on a trolley.

Dr Rekers’s companion has been identified as a 20-year-old Puerto Rican whose entry on the Rentboy.com website gives his name as “Geo”. The site says that he is “sensual”, “wild” and “up for anything”. It also describes him as “versatile”, with a “nice ass”.

Contacted this week by reporters in Miami, he said he was surprised by Dr Rekers’s claim to have realised he was a prostitute only halfway through their holiday.

Geo’s profile on Rentboy.com is a bewildering mix of the banal and the specific. “I’m a college guy, masculine, educated, really easy going,” he says. “Great to get along with, can hold a conversation.” He lists stripping and go-go dancing among his talents. “I will do anything you say as long as you ask,” he promises.

Dr Rekers, who co-founded America’s most powerful Christian lobbying group, has testified as an expert in favour of bans on gay adoption in Florida and Arkansas. He has also written numerous books on homosexuality as a curable condition, including Growing Up Straight: What Families Should Know about Homosexuality.

Gay rights advocates called yesterday for him to step down from the board of the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (Narth), for which he lectures across the world. He is also closely linked with the Washington-based Family Research Council, which he founded with Dr James Dobson in 1983.

In an e-mailed response to questions about the European trip, he said: “My hero is Jesus Christ who loves even the culturally despised people, including sexual sinners and prostitutes. Like Jesus Christ, I deliberately spend time with sinners with the loving goal to try to help them.”

Dr Rekers also told a blogger who reached him via Facebook: “If you talk with my travel assistant . . . you will find I spent a great deal of time sharing scientific information on the desirability of abandoning homosexual intercourse, and I shared the gospel of Jesus Christ with him in great detail.”

In 2006 Ted Haggard resigned as a leader of the National Association of Evangelicals after a male prostitute claimed to have had sex with him for three years.

Ray Ashburn, a California state senator with a long record of opposing gay rights, was arrested and charged with drunk-driving this year while leaving a gay nightclub in Sacramento. In 1988 Jimmy Swaggart, one of America’s most successful televangelists, was found to have had regular paid sex with prostitutes.

Do as I say ...

• The televangelist Pat Robertson caused outrage when he said that the Haiti earthquake was caused by “a pact to the Devil” sworn by Haitians when they became independent of French rule

• Matt Baker, a Texan minister, was convicted of faking his wife’s suicide in 2009 so that he could have a relationship with a member of his church

• Kent Hovind, a creationist minister with his own dinosaur theme park in Florida, was sentenced to ten years in jail for falsely declaring bankruptcy and threatening investigators in 2006 Hovind paid employees in cash, claiming that they were all workers of God and therefore exempt from taxes

• The TV minister Jim Bakker shocked viewers of his television series when it emerged that he had had an affair with a secretary, paying her off with church funds. He was jailed in 1989 for fraud after paying himself and his wife, Tammy Faye, below, millions of dollars in church funds and concocting a timeshare scam at his theme park in South Carolina

Sources: ABC; AP; BBC; Time; Times archives



I love this article. I love that it includes all these so called pastors, ministers, tele evangelists reagrdless of whether it is sex with male or female prostitutes, killing wives, or just saying crazy stuff like Robinson does regularly. This article shows the hypocrisy of all of them. Why do people still follow and believe the junk they spew. Ultimately they are the agents of their own demise. We just have to sit back and wait. Haggard is out there now trying to rehab his image and I'm sick of seeing him. Rufus

[Rufusboi]

Anti-Gay Hypocrite is News Because of His Activism (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/vp/37031183#37031183)

I love Rachel Maddow. I would add one thing. If miserable George thinks being gay can be cured why doesn't he cure himself?

Rufus

[UofMfan]

May 9, 2010

Far Right Leader Busted With Gay Escort Got Taxpayer Money from GOP Gov Candidate to Bash Gays

Alternet.
This post originally appeared on Washington Monthly.

REKERS GOT TAXPAYER MONEY FROM FLORIDA’S MCCOLLUM…. At first blush, the controversy surrounding George Alan Rekers is just another embarrassment for the religious right movement, and another example of bizarre personal hypocrisy on the far-right. But the story might turn out to be more politically relevant than first believed.

If you’re just joining us, Rekers, a Baptist minister who worked with James Dobson to create the right-wing Family Research Council, has long been a virulently anti-gay crusader. It was interesting, then, when we learned this week that Rekers hired a young, male prostitute to join him on a European vacation last month. Rekers met his travel companion on a website devoted to connecting gay escorts with clients.

Though Rekers later said he merely counseled his companion on how to stop being gay, the escort later said the two were physically intimate.

Yesterday, however, the larger story took on a new angle. Rachel Slajda reports that Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum (R), currently a leading gubernatorial candidate, used taxpayer money to pay Rekers to bash gays.

[McCollum] paid George Rekers at least $60,900 to be an expert witness in 2008 while defending Florida’s ban against gay couple adopting children. When a judge called Rekers’ testimony neither “credible nor worthy of forming the basis of public policy,” McCollum explicitly defended him in following briefs.

Rekers is currently embroiled in a scandal for hiring a male escort to accompany him on a trip to Europe. But he’s also a leader in the ex-gay movement. He co-founded the Family Research Council and sits on the board of the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality. He has, by all accounts, dedicated his life to protecting children from the “harmful” influence of gay people.

In his testimony for the state of Florida, Rekers testified that homosexual people have a higher incidence of depression, substance abuse and break-ups than heterosexual people. This, he testified, made homosexual partners incapable of “providing a safe and secure and emotionally stable environment for the child.”

Rekers’ anti-gay testimony was ridiculous, and the judge in the case rejected his remarks, noting that his conclusions are “motivated by his strong ideological and theological convictions that are not consistent with the science.”

But this certainly seems like an area that warrants some follow-up. Bill McCollum used at least $60,900 in taxpayer money — more than most Americans earn in a year — to pay Rekers to make ridiculous and unsubstantiated claims against gay people? And then we find out that Rekers also gallivanted through Europe with a male prostitute?

McCollum has been leading in most statewide polls, but this one might leave a mark.

[UofMfan]

George Rekers Resigns From Anti-Gay Group In Wake Of 'Rentboy' Scandal
HuffPo
First Posted: 05-12-10 09:32 AM, Updated: 05-12-10 11:38 AM

Prominent anti-gay activist George Rekers, who was caught last week returning from a 10-day trip to Europe with a male escort he found on Rentboy.com, has terminated his association with a major anti-gay group.

Rekers has resigned from the board of the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality, or NARTH, "to allow myself the time necessary to fight the false media reports that have been made against me," the retired professor said in a statement.

Once again, Rekers declined to dispute specific elements of the Miami New Times' coverage, choosing instead to contradict its obvious implications. "With the assistance of a defamation attorney, I will fight these false reports because I have not engaged in any homosexual behavior whatsoever," he said. "I am not gay and never have been."

NARTH, which advocates "therapy" to convert gays and fights scientific research suggesting that such treatment is ludicrous, attached a statement to Rekers' resignation asserting that his apparent hypocrisy does not reflect on their work. A NARTH spokesman told TPM that the extent of the organization's involvement in the Rentboy scandal is to tell Rekers "if he is innocent he needs to get a good lawyer."

Rekers is no stranger to courtrooms. As Michael Rogers notes, Rekers has testified against gay adoption on behalf of the states of Florida and Arkansas, for which he was paid $120,000 by Florida and $60,000 by Arkansas -- the latter in a settlement following a two-year court battle after he billed Arkansas for $165,000. In each case, the presiding judge called Rekers' testimony "extremely suspect" or concluded that "the court cannot consider his testimony to be credible nor worthy of forming the basis of public policy."

The escort Rekers was caught with, Jo-Vanni Roman, appeared on "Anderson Cooper 360" to talk about their trip to Europe. Roman didn't have too many new details, but he talks a bit about some elements of the contract Rekers drew up, which required that Roman spend eight hours and eat two meals with him per day during the trip.

[SuperFemme]

McCollum says he needed Rekers in case challenging state gay adoption ban

Attorney General Bill McCollum Tuesday defended his personal intervention into the selection of an antigay expert witness in the case defending the state's gay adoption ban, saying his office "searched a long time" for someone and that George Rekers was the only one of two they could find.

Records show that McCollum personally requeste (http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/05/11/1623961/bill-mccullom-requested-hiring.html)d that the state's Department of Children & Families hire Rekers at $300 an hour to help the state defend the case. When the agency balked at the price tag, McCollum's office persisted, ultimately leading to DCF paying pay him $120,000 over two years.

McCollum said that while he would not hire Rekers again knowing what he knows now -- that Rekers vacationed for two weeks in Europe with a gay male escort from Miami and received sexual massages from him -- he suggested that without Rekers the agency would not have been successful.

DCF lost the case in circuit court and the matter is now on appeal.
Here's a Q and A between McCollum and reporters today:

Q: Did you push for Rekers because he was the only expert you could find that represented the point of view that you wanted to take in that case?

A: The attorney generals office played its traditional role and defended DCF and the legal challenge, McCollum said. "There was a search that I oversaw and saw for the best available experts. Dr. Rekers was one of the two expert witnesses we used in this case. We recommended both to the department. They decided to hire Dr. Rekers and they paid him.

"If I knew what I know today would I recommend him again? Of course not. Would I ever recommend him again? No. But he was the best available at the time.''

Q: Was he the only available?

A: "There were two."

Q: There were only two you could find in the whole nation?

A: "There were only two willing to step forward and testify and we searched a long time. His credentials were very good and, on paper, excellent. That's why we recommended it because those kinds of people that we were able to fill for the job. It's nice to quarterback in hindsight but we didn't know his background that we know today. Nobody else did."

Q: Does it raise some questions about about the nature of hiring an expert witnesses? ...If you are trying to find an expert witness who will only say one thing and you can only find two people who will only say one thing does that raise any questions in your mind about the legal principle here?

A: "If you want to look at the whole system of law today, the battle of expert witnesses needs to be addressed. But the way our system works today, expert witnessses are important. You have to establish your case. We happened to be on the side of the state. You've got to get the very best you can."

Q: If you didn't have an expert witness what would have happened to your case?

A: "If you don't have an expert witness you aren't going to be as successful...I didn't try the case. These are our lawyers for the department and I'm proud of our lawyer team."

Q: Should the state ask for its money back?

A: "I can't comment on the litigation itself. It's an ongoing process."



Read more: http://miamiherald.typepad.com/nakedpolitics/2010/05/mccollum-says-he-needed-rekers-in-case-challenging-state-gay-adoption-ban.html#ixzz0njuJWUrR

[SuperFemme]

Commentary: Professor George Rekers explains it all
Fred Grimm | The Miami Herald

last updated: May 10, 2010 01:31:55 PM

If Professor George gets away with this, I'm going straight to Rentgirl. It's my bad back.

Not that I'm suggesting George Rekers went straight to Rentboy, the explicit website where his fellow traveler advertises a willingness "to do anything you say as long as you ask."

Professor George, as he styles himself on his website, ProfessorGeorge.com , offers a vaguely plausible (alcohol might help) explanation. He didn't procure the services of a 20-year-old male prostitute to join him on a 10-day-jaunt through England and Spain for purposes of prostitution. "Following medical advice Professor George Rekers requires an assistant to lift his luggage in his travels because of an ongoing condition following surgery."

With a line like that, and a note from a doctor, who knows how many relationships I might have salvaged?

To be fair, Professor George has never testified that gays don't make splendid international traveling companions.

George Rekers was paid handsomely by Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum ($60,900) and the state of Arkansas ($60,000), to flog gay men and women as unfit parents. Particularly adoptive parents.

As a bonus, at no extra charge, Rekers testified in Miami-Dade Circuit Court that he also considered American Indians to be in the same risky category.

Best I can tell, Rekers has never disparaged the fitness of gays or Indians to hump his baggage. George Rekers comes with a lot of baggage.

Rekers, 61, of North Miami, a Baptist minister and a retired professor of behavior science, has long provided academic cover for the Christian right's anti-gay agenda. He's written books, delivered lectures and provided pithy quotes that intimate a scientific basis for opposition to gay adoption and gay marriage.

[SuperFemme]

I am wondering who will expertly hate on us now that Georgie is unavailable?

He was crucial as an expert witness in both Florida and Arkansas banning adoptions by gays. BUT according to the AG's office in FL, there were only two such *experts* willing to come forward and testify.

I am hoping that his fall from grace will result in more than a resounding *thud* as conservative groups trip over themselves to put some distance between Professor George and their organizations.

I am hoping that there will be nobody left. Dare I hope that his actions take away his credibility as an expert in appellate court?

[UofMfan]

I am wondering who will expertly hate on us now that Georgie is unavailable?

He was crucial as an expert witness in both Florida and Arkansas banning adoptions by gays. BUT according to the AG's office in FL, there were only two such *experts* willing to come forward and testify.

I am hoping that his fall from grace will result in more than a resounding *thud* as conservative groups trip over themselves to put some distance between Professor George and their organizations.

I am hoping that there will be nobody left. Dare I hope that his actions take away his credibility as an expert in appellate court?

Well, I think his credibility is basically in shambles now, or at least I hope so.

As for who is left? There is always some wing nut willing to step in, I am afraid. Let's hope not.

[SuperFemme]

Let's hope.

BTW, what is his problem with Native Americans? I had no idea he had it out for more than just us.

[Cyclopea]

IlnQZVTAcRc

[Soon]

Sleazy deal snares McCollum (http://www.tampabay.com/opinion/editorials/sleazy-deal-snares-mccollum/1094764)

[Rufusboi]

I'm a fan of Leonard Pitts' column and he had a great one yesterday on Georgie. Here a link.

http://www.miamiherald.com/living/columnists/leonard_pitts/

Rufus

[Soon]

Before He Hired an Escort, Rekers Tried to Spank the Gay Away
(http://blogs.miaminewtimes.com/riptide/2010/05/before_he_hired_an_escort_reke.php)
....

In 1974, Rekers, a leading thinker in the so-called ex-gay movement, was presented with a 4-year-old "effeminate boy" named Kraig, whose parents had enrolled him in the program. Rekers put Kraig in a "play-observation room" with his mother, who was equipped with a listening device. When the boy played with girly toys, the doctors instructed her to avert her eyes from the child.

According to a 2001 account in Brain, Child Magazine, "On one such occasion, his distress was such that he began to scream, but his mother just looked away. His anxiety increased, and he did whatever he could to get her to respond to him... Kraig became so hysterical, and his mother so uncomfortable, that one of the clinicians had to enter and take Kraig, screaming, from the room." Rekers's research team continued the experiment in the family's home. Kraig received red chips for feminine behavior and blue chips for masculine behavior. The blue chips could be cashed in for candy or television time. The red chips earned him a "swat" or spanking from his father. Researchers periodically entered the family's home to ensure proper implementation of the reward-punishment system.

After two years, the boy supposedly manned up. Over the decades, Rekers, who ran countless similar experiments, held Kraig up as "the poster boy for behavioral treatment of boyhood effeminacy."

At age 18, shamed by his childhood diagnosis and treatment, Rekers's poster boy attempted suicide, according to Gender Shock, a book by journalist Phyllis Burke. Rekers, whose early experiments were the first to ostensibly demonstrate a "gay cure," resigned from the National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) last week, after it was revealed the gay escort had given him nude sexual massages. NARTH, however, stands by his science.

[Soon]

Scandal Stirs Legal Questions in Anti-Gay Cases (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/19/us/19rekers.html)