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.