Tuesday, May 04, 2010

Family Research Council Founder Vacations With "Rentboy"

It's easy to say that people who are vigorously anti-gay are likely dealing with a personal struggle. It's a kind of obvious way to neutralize and discount them without taking their arguments seriously, by suggesting that they themselves are the very thing they most loathe. At first I thought that was the low road, it seemed like a kind of unfair thing to say. But over the years I saw some of these people at work, and you do, you wonder, how can they believe those things? How can somebody, for instance, believe that sexual orientation is a choice?

I hate to say it but the uncharitable explanation seems pretty believable to me now. Someone can think sexual orientation is a choice because for them it was a choice. A boy hits puberty and starts noticing ... boys ... in a society that makes fun of sexual minorities and commits violence against them, he might just choose to ask a girl to dance instead of the one he really likes. Then he can join in the bullying and teasing, rather than being a target of it. He may honestly think that everybody else goes through that same process, and gay people are simply individuals who didn't have the moral fortitude or whatever to choose like he did. It's a pitiful scenario, but this is certainly how it happens, at least some of the time. Look at how many conservative politicians and church leaders have fallen out of the closet over the past few years.

One of the most stridently anti-LGBT groups on the national scene, and one that has hooks in our Maryland county, is the Family Research Council. The group was incorporated in 1983 to lobby for conservative legislation in Washington, and in the late 80s became part of James Dobson's Focus on the Family empire. Its founding board included Dobson and two psychiatrists, Armand Nicholi, Jr., and George Rekers, both of whom are now associated with the National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality, or NARTH, an anti-gay psychiatric group.

Wayne Besen at Truth Wins Out ripped into this breaking story today:
NEW YORK - Truth Wins Out called on anti-gay activist Dr. George A. Rekers to resign from the board of a leading "ex-gay" therapy group and apologize to the LGBT community after the Miami New Times discovered that he took a male prostitute that he met on Rentboy.com to Europe. According to the sex worker, Rekers "likes younger guys to hang out with."
"This is a bombshell that completely discredits the ex-gay industry and proves that the movement is a fraud," said Wayne Besen, Executive Director of Truth Wins Out. "While Rekers keeps a low public profile, his fingerprints are on almost every anti-gay effort to demean and dehumanize LGBT people. Lobby groups that work to deny equality to LGBT Americans ubiquitously cite his work. Rekers has caused a great deal of harm to gay and lesbian individuals."

A major anti-gay figure that used to work at University of South Carolina, Rekers is a founder of the Family Research Council, a board member of the National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality, and testified as an expert witness in favor of gay adoption bans in both Arkansas and Florida. He has also published several anti-gay books.

Both the sex worker and Rekers deny having sex on the trip, and emails exchanged between the two prior to their escapade are carefully worded. Reached by New Times reporters Penn Bullock and Brandon K. Thorp, who broke the story, before a trip to Bermuda, Rekers said he learned that the man in question was a prostitute only midway through their vacation. "I had surgery," Rekers said, "and I can't lift luggage. That's why I hired him." (Though medical problems didn't stop him from pushing the large baggage cart through Miami International Airport, according to the New Times.)
"It is clear that Rekers has baggage and certainly needs help," said Besen. "At least he did not say he was walking the Appalachian Trail. Given the sordid and tawdry facts, he should immediately step down from NARTH's Board and apologize to the LGBT community for his extreme hypocrisy and self-loathing. As of today, his entire body of work on LGBT issues is rendered meaningless."

This is the second NARTH board member to be exposed as a fraud in the past three months. In February, Arthur Abba Goldberg was unmasked as a con artist who had served prison time for bond fraud. Goldberg was also the co-fonder of Jews Offering New Alternatives to Homosexuality (JONAH). Goldberg resigned from NARTH's board in shame. Leading Ex-Gay Activist Caught On Vacation With ‘Rent Boy’

If you need someone to carry your bags for you, do you call a prostitute? Me either.

18 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Rolling my eyes at Jim's "theory." According to this brilliant theory, a person isn't allowed to have any beliefs regarding acceptable and non-acceptable behavior without being labeled.

I'm against rape and I'm not a closet rapist. Gee, how can this possibly be?

May 04, 2010 10:34 PM  
Anonymous Merle said...

Anon, you are an idiot.

May 04, 2010 10:42 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Using Jim's logic and rape, it would go something like this:

A man who feels rape is wrong feels that way because he made a conscious decision not to rape. (Rapists usually feel that they have the innate desire to rape -- probably a rape gene even.)

So now, he claims to be against rape because he made the conscious decision not to rape, and is mad at rapists for not making that same decision.

So now, with this theory, we have labeled every man who has never raped as a closet rapist who had the intense desire to rape but never fulfilled it. Ya. Makes a lot of sense.

In every facet of life we can find hypocrites. This doesn't mean they're the norm.

May 04, 2010 11:04 PM  
Blogger JimK said...

Anon, I was just about to crash and I saw your comment. I am talking about those people who spend their whole lives campaigning against homosexuality, I'm not talking about the average Joe who doesn't get it and doesn't really like to be around it. Even if a person who is told at church that it is wrong and so believes it is wrong without thinking about it, I'm not talking about them. There are people whose entire career is built around obsessively denigrating gay people, and those people have a high propensity for falling out of the closet.

JimK

May 04, 2010 11:11 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Jim said: If you need someone to carry your bags for you, do you call a prostitute?

Anonymous said: Only if they are tea bags!

May 05, 2010 7:25 AM  
Anonymous Aunt Bea said...

Joe.My.God. contacted Rekers via facebook and then tracked down "Lucien," the escort Rekers hired to "lift his luggage."

IMHO Lucien looks like he could lift some luggage, even that "overburdened baggage cart" Rekers himself was reportedly seen pushing through MIA upon his and Lucien's return to the US from their 10 day trip abroad, during which, The Miami NewTimes News reports:

"...Rekers lectures worldwide, from Europe to the Middle East, on teen sexuality. Yet during his ten-day sojourn with Lucien to London and Madrid, he had no lectures scheduled..."

According to Joe.My.God. who contacted Rekers through Facebook, Rekers claims:

"...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."

Joe adds:

"Oh, well that explains EVERYTHING! Dr. George Rekers is curing homosexuals ONE BY ONE by hiring them on MALE PROSTITUTION websites! Glory! Praise His Name!"

May 05, 2010 8:52 AM  
Anonymous Robert said...

Anonymous equates being gay to rape.

May 05, 2010 11:00 AM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

This comment has been removed by the author.

May 05, 2010 12:02 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Bad anonymous said "In every facet of life we can find hypocrites. This doesn't mean they're the norm."

In this case the evidence shows it does. 80% of self-described homophobes are turned on by gay sex:

http://www.petertatchell.net/homophobia/bigots%20are%20buggers.htm

Any male who's secure in his heterosexuality has no reason to be obsessed with gay sex. Its those who seek to destroy what they hate in themselves who devote their lifetimes to opposing gayness.

The most anti-gay attackers I've encountered on the internet have been gay themselves. One after another we've seen the most rabid anti-gays get exposed as closeted gay men. Bad anonymous is a good example, only a self-loathing gay has the motivation to spend every waking hour attacking gayness in a vain attempt to kill his own same sex attractions. Bad anonymous spends every day here making the vast majority of the comments in a desperate attempt to convince himself he will somehow eventually rid himself of the same sex attractions he hates so much.

May 05, 2010 12:05 PM  
Anonymous Aunt Bea said...

CBSNews reports:

"...Contacted for comment, the Family Research Council confirmed that Rekers was a member of its founding board.

"Reports have been circulating regarding Dr. Rekers relationship with a male prostitute," said Family Research Council President Tony Perkins. "FRC has had no contact with Dr. Rekers or knowledge of his activities in over a decade so FRC can provide no further insight into these allegations."

"While we are extremely disappointed when any Christian leader engages in the very activities that they 'preach' against, it is not surprising," he continued. "The Scriptures clearly teach the fallen nature of all people. We each have a choice to act upon that nature or accept the forgiveness offered by grace through faith in Jesus Christ and do our best to ensure our actions, both public and private match our professed positions."


Even Tony Perkins, a well-known lobbyist against equal rights for LGBT people, admits that it is "not surprising...when any Christian leader engages in the very activities that they 'preach' against."

There's always hope for redemption.

Thanks to Priya Lynn for the information about the study published in 1996 in the Journal of Abnormal Psychology, entitled Is Homophobia Associated with Homosexual Arousal? by Adams, Wright, and Lohr at the University of Georgia, which found:

The results of this study indicate that individuals who score in the homophobic range and admit negative affect toward homosexuality demonstrate significant sexual arousal to male homosexual erotic stimuli. These individuals were selected on the basis of their report of having only heterosexual arousal and experiences. Furthermore, their ratings of erection and arousal to homosexual stimuli were low and not significantly different from nonhomophobic men who demonstrated no significant increase in penile response to homosexual stimuli. These data are consistent with response discordance where verbal judgments are not consistent with physiological reactivity, as in the case of homophobic individuals viewing homosexual stimuli.

May 06, 2010 8:21 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Well, regardless of the fact that Montgomery County schools teach children that homosexuality is simply innate and unchangeable, most people recognize that there are a host of issues that influence a person's sexuality.

When a child is molested, for instance, it is difficult to predict how that child will grow sexually. Oprah, for instance, once noted that molested children often become promiscuous because a sexual "switch" is turned on at a point in their lives when it was unnatural to be turned on.

From stories I've heard about, some people were molested by a homosexual as a child and understand that this "switch" was unnaturally turned on for them, and they understand how their beautiful, natural sexuality was perverted and twisted. They may spend a lifetime fighting what was done to them and try to help others, but then they ultimately fail and become what we call hypocrites.

May 06, 2010 1:09 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Did the well-known scientist, Oprah, also point out that the vast majority of adult/child molestations have been, and continue to be, perpetrated by heterosexuals?

"From stories I've heard about some people were molested by a homosexual as a child and understand that this "switch" was unnaturally turned on for them, and they understand how their beautiful, natural sexuality was perverted and twisted." Stories you've HEARD ABOUT people who were molested by a homosexual? ...now there's some significant scientific data to work with!

And even worse, they might have even been molested by a PARENT, or a heterosexual friend or relative of the family, or a heterosexual neighbor, or the family's pastor, or one of those heterosexual perverts who lurk everywhere!

Imagine, if you can, having to deal with a lifetime of guilt brought on by the sexual abuse of a PARENT, or a heterosexual family member, or any of the vast majority of child molesters who are heterosexual.

It's no wonder that the American institution of marriage and the family is undergoing such turmoil these days.

May 06, 2010 2:47 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Well, well, I never said that molestations were committed only or mostly by homosexuals. Somehow, Anon, you came up with that theory all by yourself.

Since the subject of this blog was about a gay man (Rekers) who has worked during his life to fight the gay agenda -- I was specifically addressing gay men, not heterosexual ones.

By the way...Jim and company keep chastising people like Rekers, but remember...all of these people you're chastising are gay men. Are gay men expected to go along with the gay agenda -- or be excoriated if they don't agree that the agenda should be pursued? Obviously Rekers is a gay man who doesn't go along with the gay agenda -- and look how all of you turn on him!

Maybe Rekers understands how being gay has corrupted his soul and doesn't want others to go through the same torment. If he fought against drunk driving and then was caught driving drunk...what would it matter? He'd probably still believe that people shouldn't drive drunk.

Regarding Oprah....she isn't a scientist, but she was molested as a child and has studied the subject.

May 06, 2010 5:36 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

George A. Rekers -- Stephen Colbert's Alpha Dog of the Week

May 06, 2010 5:43 PM  
Anonymous Level Headed said...

10 day trip to Europe - we can assume, but we don't know for sure what took place on that trip.
Gays in the military? We can also assume what will take place and that too will be inappropriate.
That is why it should remain "don't ask, don't tell" for the military.

May 06, 2010 10:53 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Level, do you think there is any sex between heterosexual members of the military?

May 06, 2010 11:14 PM  
Anonymous Aunt Bea said...

we don't know for sure what took place on that trip

Lucien was interviewed yesterday and he knows for sure what took place on that trip:

"​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.

..."It's a situation where he's going against homosexuality when he is a homosexual," Lucien says. (When New Times called seeking comment, Rekers had turned his phone off. An email was not returned. He has termed the New Times article "slanderous" on his website.)

...Lucien decided to speak out after a heart-to-heart with a friend, Michael, who alerted him to the grim realities of his client's anti-gay activities. Lucien, who had originally declined to speak about the trip, now says he can do little good by protecting his erstwhile, fundamentalist client.

In the past 24 hours, Rekers, a board member at the National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) and cofounder of the Family Research Council, has claimed he took Lucien to Europe to inspire him to accept Jesus into his heart and renounce his homosexuality.

Lucien now offers Rekers a counterproposal: "In all honesty, he should disassociate himself from these [anti-gay] groups." "

May 07, 2010 7:32 AM  
Anonymous Aunt Bea said...

Maybe Rekers understands how being gay has corrupted his soul and doesn't want others to go through the same torment.

If Rekers agrees with you that gays souls are "tormented" and he wants to save them from that "torment," he should have used an honest approach. Instead, he's spent his life living a lie and trying to get other gays to live that same lie too -- except of course for Lucien and who knows how many others.

IMHO Rekers is the corrupted one. He accepted what he'd been taught -- the lies that homosexuality is a sin and that it is possible to change from gay to straight. Rather than question those lies based on his own life experiences, Rekers embraced them. He not only publicly lived the lies himself, he also spread them around the globe as his life's work. But now everybody knows that Rekers himself, like Ted Haggard, Mark Foley, Larry Craig, Michael Johnston, and countless other ex-ex-gays before him, has proven that the change he claims is possible is a lie and living that lie causes more "torment" than living an honest life ever could.

Rekers is a highly educated man who seems to have forgotten a simple truth: honesty is the best policy.

IMHO Lucien is right when he says "In all honesty, he should disassociate himself from these [anti-gay] groups."

And Rekers newly discovered dishonesty doesn't only effect himself. FRC has issued a statement distancing themselves from their publicly corrupted co-founder. Dr. Throckmorton reports NARTH has issued a statement admitting, "We are always saddened when this type of controversy impacts the lives of individuals...". Mrs. Rekers and the Rekers children (unless his MySpace page is another lie) must be in "torment" to learn that Dr. Rekers has been living a lie and keeping this secret from them for so long.

LevelH -- you might want to read about the Navy's 2007 revised rules on fraternization.

All ...personal relationships which contravene the customary bounds of acceptable senior-subordinate relationships...between officer members as well as between enlisted members...[and] between potential military recruits and recruiters are offenses.

Read more on Fraternization in the United States Military in general here.

May 07, 2010 9:11 AM  

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