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Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Homo / Sex / Religion George "Rentboy" Rekers Lifts His Own Luggage

Posted by Dan Savage on Wed, May 5, 2010 at 11:06 AM

Via of the Miami New Times:

Alert readers will recall that yesterday Rekers, the now-disgraced co-founder of the Family Research Council, claimed he hired Geo—seen on the right—to accompany him to Europe for ten days because Rekers recently underwent surgery and he needed someone to "lift his luggage." It would appear from the photo, however, that Rekers is tending to his own luggage. Now maybe Geo loaded Rekers cart for him and Rekers pushed it through the airport. Alert readers will also recall that Rekers admitted to finding Geo on Rentboy.com but denied knowing that Geo was a male escort until halfway through the trip. But Rekers also said he took a male prostitute to Europe with him on purpose because that's what Jesus and John the Baptist would do and his real motive in bringing Geo along—and paying him handsomely—wasn't to enjoy Geo's eight-inch cock or smooth white ass, but to get Geo alone ~~on the world's most densely populated continent~~ on a terribly crowded continent to lecture Geo about the advisability of leaving homosexual intercourse behind. In other developments...

Where did Rekers get the money to go to Europe with a pricey male escort? By serving as a paid "expert witness" for the state of Florida and testifying against gay people being allowed to adopt children. Florida paid Rekers $87,000 for his "expertise." Florida is in court trying to prevent a male couple from formally adopting two boys the state placed in their care almost a decade ago. Rekers—who adopted a 16-year-old boy himself four years ago (a boy who is now the same age as Geo)—believes that gay people shouldn't be allowed to adopt boys. Only rent them.

UPDATE: Regarding that rent boy...

...Geo looks like Twink MacGruber, says Slog reader Doug.

UPDATE 2: Rekers has been trying to cure gays/lesbians/travel assistants for a long, long time, says Good As You.

UPDATE 3: And—if you can stand it—Jay Leno told a "jokes" or two about Rekers in last night's monologue. The Rekers bit starts seven minutes in.

Via JMG.

UPDATE 4: Joe has some questions for Florida's attorney general, Bill McCollum, the man who paid Rekers nearly 90K to testify against gay people being allowed to adopt children. McCollum is currently running for governor and Joe thinks Florida voters should know that the candidate has been "palling around with guys who patronize male prostitutes."

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Does it count as Schadenfreude if they really, really deserve it?

Posted by Anne in MA on May 5, 2010 at 11:11 AM

Dan, your head is going to explode if you follow this too closely.

Posted by tiktok on May 5, 2010 at 11:20 AM

Europe is not the world's most densely populated continent.

Posted by Fnarf

on May 5, 2010 at 11:25 AM

I don't bvelieve in Hell, but I want him to go there and burn for all of eternity anyway.

The old man, not the boy hooker. Boy hookers rock.

Posted by very bad homo on May 5, 2010 at 11:26 AM

@2: h/t

Posted by Telsa Grills on May 5, 2010 at 11:26 AM

I thought we were calling him Lucien

Posted by foodpillsyes on May 5, 2010 at 11:30 AM

whatever happened to the travesty in Sonoma you were so outraged about?

you remember? The one where they took all of one queers shit and kidnapped the other one!

Posted by wheres the outrage? on May 5, 2010 at 11:33 AM

@ 3, what is? Africa? It can't be Asia because of all that empty land in Siberia...

Posted by Matt from Denver on May 5, 2010 at 11:36 AM

@ 8 - If Wiki is to be believed, Asia is. The population density of Asia as a whole is 226 people/sq mile. Europe's is 181 people/sq mile.

The huge populations of China and India apparently make up for the swaths of largely unoccupied land on the continent.

Posted by Anne in MA on May 5, 2010 at 11:45 AM

That 1976 article is shocking and horrible, a reminder of how fucking sick these bastards have always been.

"His colleague Dr. Lovaas is known for his use of electric cattle prods in 'behavior modification therapy' on autistic children".

He's tormenting boys who exhibit such "gay" characteristics as "avoiding rough sports" until they are "so reckless in play that he was hurting himself and damaging the furniture". Creating a generation of bullies.

What a fucking pig.

Posted by Fnarf

on May 5, 2010 at 11:47 AM

I assure you that I did not type in "population density by continent" into the little box in the upper right of my browser, then clicked on the first link provided.

Instead, I pulled these numbers out of my ass. So take them w/ a square of tissue:

Population density of the continents:

* North America - 32 people per square mile
* South America - 73 people per square mile
* Europe - 134 people per square mile
* Asia - 203 people per square mile
* Africa - 65 people per square mile
* Australia - 6.4 people per square mile

Scarlett is looking mighty nice, but who's the douchebag she's with?

Posted by Some Old Nobodaddy Logged In on May 5, 2010 at 11:51 AM

@10 it would be interesting to know the suicide rates as adults of the children "treated" by these monsters.

Posted by Westside forever on May 5, 2010 at 11:56 AM

@7: The trial is in July; one of the men is dead, the other can't get access to anything until the trial. Outrage deferred is still outrage.

Posted by Baconcat on May 5, 2010 at 11:56 AM

I can't remember. Was Leno ever like really funny? His recent performance at the White House Press Dinner was lame, this show is lame. He's getting unwatchable.

Posted by Brooklyn Reader on May 5, 2010 at 11:58 AM

Yes, that 1976 article is required reading:

Kraig, aged four, underwent ten months of behaviour modification which included spankings for wrong choices. He was, at the start, passive, non-assertive, allowed others to tease him. Now, he "regularly returns aggressiveness in his male-peer interaction." In fact, the researchers write, Kraig's mommy was alarmed at her son's transformation into "a roughneck" -- so reckless in play that he was hurting himself and damaging the furniture. The psychiatrists reassured the mother that her son's "mildly delinquent" behaviour would be far easier to overcome in later years than effeminacy.

The goal of this "conditioning" was to literally turn vaguely effeminate boys, gay or straight, into self-hating homophobes. Just like them.

I wonder how those boys turned out.

Posted by Irena on May 5, 2010 at 12:13 PM

honestly, I havent had this much fun watching the downfall of a paid to be anti-gay self loather in ages... I am almost, ALMOST slightly sorry for him.

Posted by Womyn2me $http://http:\\www.shelleyandlaura.com$ on May 5, 2010 at 12:14 PM

Update 2 deserves its own post. Even those of us who remember 1976 (and remember it well) need some reminding of how far we've come, despite current obstacles. Chilling but also, by contrast, encouraging.

Posted by rob!

on May 5, 2010 at 12:30 PM

@9, you left out Indonesia (more people than Germany, France, and the UK combined), Pakistan (more than Germany and France), Bangladesh (ditto), Japan (more than France and the UK), etc. Vietnam and the Philippines are each more populous than Germany. Russia has fewer people than six Asian countries, seven or eight if you count the Asian parts of Russia out.

There are large areas of nothing in Europe too, in Scandinavia for instance.

Posted by Fnarf

on May 5, 2010 at 12:48 PM

I have the same suitcase. (The grey Hayes on top). Yup, he's clearly gay.

Posted by RealityBites on May 5, 2010 at 12:55 PM

I can't laugh because I'm so infuriated that this twisted charlatan with blood on his hands got paid $87,000 by the state of Florida to share his poisonous bullshit "expert testimony" in court to support the law that prevents orphans and foster children from being placed in homes with loving parents who happen to be gay. He's more than just a comically pitiable hypocrite with a bad combover and a worse mustache — he's evil.

Posted by john t on May 5, 2010 at 12:57 PM

The rent boy he liked bears an odd resemblance to the late Kurt Cobain.

Wonder if that means Rekers "hated" rock and roll, too....

Posted by Johnny Angel Wendell

on May 5, 2010 at 12:59 PM

The goal of this "conditioning" was to literally turn vaguely effeminate boys, gay or straight, into self-hating homophobes. Just like them.

Huh, I guess we really do recruit.

Posted by Doctor Memory

on May 5, 2010 at 12:59 PM

I really appreciate how this revelation has utterly destroyed not only Reker's reputation as a religious leader but his academic credibility in one fell swoop.

Listen to the hypocrisy in this fucking article he wrote. Commenting on the "furious egalitarianism" that led to the removal of homosexuality from the DSM:

The use (or abuse) of research may continue to be influenced by ideological factors in American culture (Lundy & Rekers, 1995a).

So what's Rekers' solution?

Preliminary findings have been published in the literature which report on the positive therapeutic effects of religious conversion for curing transsexualism (Barlow, Abel & Blanchard, 1977) and on the positive therapeutic effect of a church ministry to repentant homosexuals (Pattison & Pattison, 1980). Further research should be addressed to the relationship of spiritual conversion and spiritual well-being upon sexual identity development and sexual adjustment.

That's right. The APA's decision was ideological; the push for religious conversion somehow isn't. Who could mistake this crap for objective research?

Posted by Irena on May 5, 2010 at 1:04 PM

When will "lift my baggage" officially replace "wide stance" as the "ludicrous excuse du jour among closeted homophobic parasites that prey on low-information idiots"?

Two weeks.

Posted by Johnny Angel Wendell

on May 5, 2010 at 1:18 PM

@23, this is so egregious that I would like to see the UCLA Medical School, the Fuller Theological Seminary, and any other at-least-somewhat-reputable institution with links to Reker issue statements of disapproval, apologizing for past research methods, and promising review of scholarly papers on which he was a co-author with an eye to retraction where appropriate. Retraction, of course, doesn't make the papers vanish, but it effectively means they cannot be cited as affirming evidence in future manuscripts and abstracts submitted to reputable journals and symposia.

Posted by rob!

on May 5, 2010 at 1:29 PM

oh, this post needs an update. The http://www.professorgeorge.com/ website has a statement!

Posted by roots on May 5, 2010 at 1:37 PM

@16

I agree. It really is deliciously entertaining and hilarious. Good times!

Posted by Confluence on May 5, 2010 at 2:33 PM

So...I guess this isn't what gay people mean when they say 'straight-acting'?

Posted by James Hutchings on May 5, 2010 at 3:31 PM

Yippeee! Front page of Google News! From here to the Daily Show and there to eternity bwahahahaha!

Posted by Lynx on May 5, 2010 at 3:36 PM

Is it me? Did you ever notice that Republican and/or Religious gay scandals almost NEVER appear on Drudgereport. What does that say about Matt Drudge?

Posted by filthylucre on May 5, 2010 at 10:14 PM

Jay Leno says "rentboy.com" so many times in this clip it wouldn't surprise me if he was angling for free male hookers.

Posted by stuck in boston

on May 6, 2010 at 1:08 AM

Well, how petty. A gentlemen treats a young man to not only some very scholarly ethics, morals and upright Christianity but to a lovely trip to Europe, and all you people can do is mock and deride him?

On the other hand, there was probably plenty of deriding upon the gentleman to raise a few eyebrows, I'll grant you that.

Posted by Sheck on May 7, 2010 at 2:20 AM