Co-founder of Family Research Council Enjoys European Vacation with Male Prostitute
The fascination we normal folk have with the sex lives of our society’s leaders seems only tempered by the interest they have in our own. Ironically, anti-gay religious and political spokesmen being serendipitously outed as homosexuals is so commonplace now in national news that the relative shock of such headlines is deadened to the point that they nearly align with popular expectations. 
The cognitive dissonance that exists as a result of rancorously attacking a way of life while surreptitiously participating in it oozes such hypocrisy that it illuminates these men as being more sinister than the accumulation of their bigotry. It was without much surprise then that I learned that another mouthpiece of the far right, one George Rekers, who alongside James Dobson co-founded the ultra-conservative Family Research Council, was himself caught when returning to the United States following a ten-day European vacation with a male prostitute he hired from rentboy.com.
Rekers claims that he hired this manservant as just that, a porter for his bags. Due to recent back surgery, Rekers was unable to move his luggage and therefore dependent on the aid of a travelling companion. While Rekers admits to hiring Lucien (as he is known to his clients), he argues that he did so by “interviewing several people who might be able to help“, and it was not until midway through the vacation that he realized his companion was a prostitute. Lucien, however, claims that Rekers hired him through his employer’s website, rentboy.com. When doing so, Rekers must have somehow missed the panoply of exposed and erect phalli that decorate the site. It is fair to say that the services provided by rentboy.com do not necessarily exclude baggage handling, but I’d imagine that would need to be negotiated in addition to the standard rate of $300 per hour (but that’s the normal fare for a travelling bellhop, right?).
After the story broke, Rekers claimed that his vacation was really an attempt to save Lucien’s soul, “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.” Lucien, breaking escort-client confidentiality only after learning of Rekers’ day job, disputes this claim. In an interview with the Miami New Times, Lucien states that Rekers purchased once-a-day massages, delivered and received in the nude, in which Lucien obliged Rekers’ request to rub “across his penis, thigh… and his anus.” Since Rekers is being all generous in comparing himself to Jesus, I don’t think it inappropriate to mention that there is no reliable historical evidence to suggest that Jesus liked frisky nude massages from other men (although there is none that says he did not). Oh wait, Rekers was comparing himself to Jesus in that he meant that they both enjoyed the company of hookers, my fault.
Rekers’ own people are briskly moving in his opposite direction. The National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH), of which Rekers is a board member, declared through third-party correspondence that, “His answers (as well as his demeanor) showed that the story wasn’t exactly as it seemed.” NARTH now denies this communication. The Family Research Council, after first clarifying they had no contact with Rekers in over a decade, stated that, “While we are extremely disappointed when any Christian leader engages in the very activities that they ‘preach’ against, it is not surprising. The Scriptures clearly teach the fallen nature of all people.” Uh huh.
To be clear, I’m not the least upset by Rekers’ homosexuality. It’s the hypocrisy I cannot abide. I am glad to not belong to a movement whose leaders are irreparably ruined by revealing their sexuality. The JREF, perhaps the leading skeptical organization in the world, was founded, and is currently presided over, by two separate intelligent and amazing men, both of whom, coincidentally, are gay. That works just fine for me, as no one requires the acceptance of the belief that only homosexuals are capable of rational thought. Unfortunately, Rekers and his type do make such a claim, but inverted. Heterosexuality is necessary to be a Christian in good standing. I guess that means that Rekers has some praying to do.
maybe he’s not a hypocrite. Maybe he rallies so strongly against homosexuality because he knows firsthand the great temptation it creates to sin. He’s just trying to save some souls.
reginald said this on May 12, 2010 at 7:36 pm |
rallies against it, yet does it… kinda definition of hypocrite.
me said this on May 15, 2010 at 4:03 pm |