He Could Make the World a Better Place

I don't want to dwell on the embarrassment of the gay family values leader who was caught with the young male prostitute. But the story has definitely taken on a life of its own.

George Rekers isn't just one of the founders of the rabidly anti-gay Family Research Council. He was also one of the founders of NARTH, the psychiatric group that has a crackpot theory about the etiology of homosexuality and crackpot methods for "curing" it, plus he is a director of the American College of Pediatricians that we have been talking about, the fake medical group that tries to look like a legitimate professional organization. His colleague from the Family Research Council, Peter Sprigg, lives in Montgomery County, and recently told our county school board they should get their information from the ACP web site.

The Miami New Times broke the story, and has followed up on it. They interviewed the the 20-year-old male prostitute, named Lucien, and were actually in the room listening in when Rekers called him and told him not to talk to the press.

Reker's web site says "There was nothing inappropriate with this relationship. Professor Rekers was not involved in any illegal or sexual behavior with his travel assistant." But the Miami New Times also interviewed Lucien, who described in lurid detail the kind of "massage" that Rekers liked to receive daily, and who said, "It's a situation where he's going against homosexuality when he is a homosexual."

Rekers is 61 years old, a boomer, a couple of years older than me. Wouldn't it be wonderful if he took this opportunity to come out and actually make the world a better place? He has been the founder of numerous anti-gay organizations, in particular groups that try to convince gay people that they can become heterosexual, and he can't even do it himself. Imagine if this learned and powerful professor were to appear on television news and talk shows -- he could even make a tour of churches -- and say, "I don't understand why some people are attracted to members of our own sex, but some of us are. I have learned to accept it and I hope you can learn to accept your gay and lesbian brothers and sisters as well."

I don't expect this to happen, of course. Rekers' whole peer group is composed of people who oppose homosexuality, he is much more likely to try to find a way to overcome or deny his feelings than to admit them, accept them, and teach others from his dark-hearted community to move toward the light. His MySpace page says he is married and has children. I can't imagine a wife so tolerant that she will believe he hired this hot young stud to carry his baggage for him! I would not recommend trying to con the wife into believing it was nothing, it is time to come out of the closet and pray that his wife can love him as he is.

And the rest of the world, too. He is now an object of ridicule, his web page has been removed from the university site, the organizations he founded now talk as if they never heard of him, every LGBT web site in the world is laughing at him, even Stephen Colbert had a hilarious segment about this. He can take this humbling opportunity to talk publicly about what it's like being gay in a world of gay-haters. He could really make the world a better place by setting a good example and by educating the ignorant people who have surrounded him for all these years. I am not holding my breath.