George Rekers, Anti-Gay Activist, Caught With Male Escort 'Rentboy' [UPDATE: Escort Says Rekers Is Gay]

Updated below...

George Alan Rekers, a prominent anti-gay activist who co-founded the conservative Family Research Council, was caught returning from a 10-day trip to Europe with a male escort he found on Rentboy.com, which is exactly what it sounds like.

[UPDATE: The escort now says Rekers is indeed gay, and that Rekers paid him to perform daily nude body rubs during their European jaunt. "It's a situation where he's going against homosexuality when he is a homosexual," the young man told the New Times, adding that Rekers -- who repeatedly asked for a move he dubbed "The Long Stroke" -- ought to divorce himself from his many anti-gay associations.

Rekers has a new explanation for the trip. "I deliberately spend time with sinners with the loving goal to try to help them," he said in a statement posted on Facebook.

The Miami New Times promises more details and a profile of the escort, whom they codenamed "Lucien" but whose identity has been revealed elsewhere.]

Not to worry, Rekers told the Miami New Times, which broke the story: He claims he learned his 20-year-old companion was a prostitute only midway through their trip, they had no intimate contact, and he hired the young man only because recent surgery means "I can't lift luggage."

This seems highly dubious, not least because the New Times reporters spotted the retired professor pushing his baggage cart through Miami International Airport. It would be extremely difficult to stumble upon the Rentboy.com homepage, which features young well-muscled men rubbing each other's crotches on grainy video loops, and not figure out what the site means by "rent boy."

The site's pages aren't indexed by Google, either, so we'll need to take the New Times' word for it that the profile page for Rekers' escort advertised his "smooth, sweet, tight ass" and "perfectly built 8 inch cock." The young man denied that he and Rekers had sex, but he did confirm that they met via his Rentboy profile.

With the scandal flaring in the wake of the New Times expose, Rekers published a statement on his personal website that decries the story's "misleading innuendo." He confuses libel with slander, but he doesn't deny any specific element of the story, only repeating his claim that he needed help carrying luggage and averring that family and friends will back that claim.

Rekers, who is also a professor emeritus of neuropsychiatry at the University of South Carolina and a Baptist minister, recently testifed against gay adoption in Florida, where he resides. Raw Story flagged a particularly jarring article in which he claims that children adopted by gay couples are more likely to commit suicide.

The retired professor has remained far less high-profile than his Family Research Council co-founder James Dobson, but he is an extremely prolific author of books like Who Am I? Lord and Growing Up Straight: What Families Should Know About Homosexuality. He has also advised members of Congress, the White House, and the Department of Health and Human Services, according to the New Times story, which is worth reading in its entirety.

Comments

[zunklives]

01:03 AM on 06/01/2010

Another down low conservative bites the dust, how many is that just this year? I wonder how many conservative women have had abortions this year, I am so tired of the hypocrasy that is the conservative party

[fanofariana]

09:47 PM on 05/13/2010

update on rentboy scandal
=========================================
ABA JOURNAL
Government Law
Fla. AG Defends $120K Payment to Expert Now Embroiled in Rentboy Scandal
Posted May 12, 2010 8:40 AM CDT
By Debra Cassens Weiss

Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum is defending the states payment of more than $120,000 for expert witness testimony by an anti-gay psychologist now caught up in the so-called Rentboy scandal.

The state had originally planned to pay George Rekers $60,900, but when he exceeded his contracted hours, the total fee paid came to $120,693, according to the Miami Herald and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. Rekers, co-founder of the Family Research Council, had testified in support of the states ban on gay adoption. He charged $300 an hour.

Rekers' charges included a $27,000 bill to "evaluate and critique" new research and $5,400 to prepare for a deposition, the Miami Herald says.

The stories quote a 2007 memo written by McCollum that backed the hiring of Rekers. "Our attorneys handling this case have searched long and hard for other expert witnesses with comparable expertise to Dr. Rekers and have been unable to identify any who would be available for this case," he wrote.

Now Rekers is disputing a claim that he vacationed with a male escort in Europe who advertised his services on Rentboy.com. Rekers says the man was hired to carry his luggage, he had no idea about the Rentboy ad, and he was not involved in illegal or sexual activity with the assistant.

[DarkWitch]

02:53 PM on 05/15/2010

Comparable expertise indeed.

[fanofariana]

02:57 PM on 05/15/2010

Thank you

[roudy]

08:17 AM on 05/12/2010

At least no one can dispute the fact this is a true leader of the teabaggers. And he leads by example by golly.

[Mike McGuire]

08:11 PM on 05/11/2010

Damn I LOVE stories like this!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
LMAO!

[Bob Smith Simi Valley]

10:34 PM on 05/11/2010

Me too. Everything they say to try to get themselves out of it just gets funnier and funnier. I can't wait until something like this breaks about the leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (the Mormons). You know it's coming.

[ranthny]

12:11 AM on 05/11/2010

Great Hardball piece on Rekers and others of his same ilk.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7ukdrPSE7g

Rekers was a paid provider serving as a tool for Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum for providing his “self-proclaimed expert” testimony that gays are unfit parents.

Keep this a burning issue that will help defeat Bill McCollum in his run for Florida Governor.

Tell Bill to find another job:
Bill’s Contact Info
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/mccollumforgovernor
Bill McCollum for Governor
; PO Box 10829
; Tallahassee, FL 32302-2829
Phone: [phone]
Web site: http://www.billmccollum.com/contact/

[Yikes11]

09:20 PM on 05/10/2010

http://blogs.miaminewtimes.com/riptide/2010/05/unless_youve_spent_the_last.php
List of 10 Con pervs.

[WonderfulLife]

02:54 PM on 05/09/2010

George Reker only has a license as a psychologist in South Carolina but lives in Miami. Psychologists are supposed to be licensed in the state where they live. And each state has a fairly strict code of professional conduct & Reker testifying with research that was thrown out by the APA because the researcher was found lying on his data may be of concern to them. Not to mention the homophobic & misogynistic statements he made at the Florida hearing:
http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2010/05/07/rekers-beliefs-no-consistent-with-the-science-rekers-himself-not-credible
South Carolina License:
George A Rekers
North Miami, FL 33181-2007 (mailing address)
License number: 364
License type: Psychologist
Original Issue Date: 09/09/1985
Status: Active
Expiration: 11/30/2011

Here's the website address for the complaint form:
http://www.llr.state.sc.us/pol/psychology/Forms/Complaint%20Form.pdf
S. C. Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation
Office of Investigations and Enforcement
P. O. Box 11329
Columbia, S.C. 29211‑1329
The complaint form may also be sent by fax to [phone].

And here's South Carolina's code of ethics for psychologists: http://www.llr.state.sc.us/pol/psychology/index.asp?file=PsyEthics.htm.

Reker is also a member of the American Academy of Clinical Psychology, Their email: [e-mail]. Being a member of the AACP gives him legitimacy to testify as an expert witness.
Please contact these agencies if you have any concerns!

[ranthny]

05:16 AM on 05/09/2010

Defeat Bill McCullum and stop him from employing Rekers again and paying Floridian’s tax money.

Elect Alex Sink!

http://www.alexsink2010.com/home

[ranthny]

04:42 AM on 05/09/2010

Contact the Pediatric Psychosocial Development Committee and tell them just what you think about George Rekers and the “ilk” that they are spewing about gays!

http://factsaboutyouth.com/contact-us/

Facts About Youth
; P.O. Box 357190; 
Gainesville, FL 32635-7190

In addition, contact the American College of Pediatricians and express what you think about their anti-gay letter that they apparently sent to the every school superintendent in the United States.

Phone: [phone]
Toll Free: 888-376-1877
Fax: [phone]

http://factsaboutyouth.com/posts/attention-school-superintendents/

[outlandish]

03:33 AM on 05/09/2010

If I was Georges adopted teenage son, I would insist on having my bedroom and bathroom swept for hiddem surveillance cameras.

[R3dhead]

02:21 AM on 05/09/2010

Yeah, we all know what you loving goal is.

[leajazz]

12:11 AM on 05/09/2010

He hired the young man only because recent surgery means "I can't lift luggage." ..

Expensive bell-hopp?

[ContraEgoiste]

08:32 PM on 05/08/2010

I disagree of the view of this man as a self hating gay.

This man doesn't hate himself in the least bit.

I would say it is quite the contrary, that he is very smug and self satisfied with what he was doing. Like every conman that believes to be more intelligent and superior to those he cons, Rekers was laughing all the way to the bank. And given the amount of people he conned and the amount of notoriety, influence and money he raked in, it is not hard to see that he believed to be so above the fray that he would never get caught. That he is gay, is just the ironic twist of fate which striped the covers off.

What this truly reveals is the pettiness, small mind ness and lack of character of his followers. It reveals how easy it is to tap into the hate and bigotry of his subscribers and be able to make a handsome profit from it. It reveals, how easy is to take advantage of their ignorance and lead them by the nose.

He was just another in the long line of unscrupulous little men that pray on the weak minded. He is no different than "Dr." Dobbson, Jim Bakker, Ted Haggard, et-al. What this really shows is the farce and joke that his followers and like minded people are that they can be so easily duped.

[WonderfulLife]

08:33 PM on 05/08/2010

Spot on observations. Fanned

[ContraEgoiste]

08:48 PM on 05/08/2010

thx

[WonderfulLife]

07:37 PM on 05/08/2010

http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2010/05/07/rekers-beliefs-no-consistent-with-the-science-rekers-himself-not-credible

Highlights of Reker's "expert" testimony in Florida:
His research is from a colleague who was kicked out of the American Psychological Association for lying about evidence regarding homosexual households. Reker dismisses the APA as being "political and not based on science."

Dr. Rekers favors removal of children from a gay household, even after 10yrs. He hypothesized that a child would recover after 1yr in a heterosexual household. The Court found his testimony to be contrary to science and decades of research in child development.

His better quotes:
"The Non-Christian psychologist who recommends that a person define his own sexual values ends up not being an advocate of human freedom, instead he becomes a revolutionary, attempting to overthrow the moral laws of God."

"Some unresponsive and insensitive husbands fail to provide masculine leadership in the home. Women have allowed themselves to be sucked into the resulting vacuum. This domestic upheaval is the dominant wife syndrome. I believe that the family will self destruct in direct proportion to its retreat from the biblically defined male and female roles"

“Homosexual activists lure our children into a deceptive and destruction fantasy world that ignores the obvious physical, social and moral boundaries of sexual expression. After getting sexual behavior between two consenting adults legalized-the next step is elimination of laws of age discrimination. This will be their battle to legalize pedophilia!”

[WonderfulLife]

07:42 PM on 05/08/2010

Otherwise known as three bricks short of a load. Kudo's to the people in the courtroom for not laughing while Reker was testifying. I can imagine that was no easy feat.

[mostlyharmless]

07:54 PM on 05/08/2010

wow . . . this man is sick . . . and so is the virginia attorney general who gave him an authoritative forum

[WonderfulLife]

07:59 PM on 05/08/2010

Actually it was the Attorney General of Florida.
He's taking a lot of flack about it on his Facebook page:
http://www.facebook.com/mccollumforgovernor

[WonderfulLife]

08:01 PM on 05/08/2010

Can you imagine how upset the taxpayers in Florida must be for him being paid $120,000 for that testimony?

[mercury613]

07:22 PM on 05/08/2010

Fantastic commentary on Rekers by Rachel Maddow:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/37031183#37031183

[benchy]

09:20 PM on 05/08/2010

This is why I love Rachel. So true what she is saying.

[Cactusman]

02:12 AM on 05/09/2010

Thanks for the post. Rachel Maddow is 100% certified awesome.

[hedah]

11:04 AM on 05/10/2010

Rachel is one of the BEST !!!