Anti-gay activist plays with rentboy

Mickey Nardo followed the story of George Rekers thoroughly, and anyone who wants to know more can go to >1boringold man.com<. Besides the schadenfreud of seeing an antigay bigot get caught with a rentboy, for me the really significant thing is how much damage someone of his prominence has done to the safety and well-being of gay teens and adults, while hiding his own gay desires and activities in the closet.

Besides helping to found the Family Research Council, he has been a board member of NARTH, a distinguished professor of neuropsychiatry at the University of South Carolina, a White House adviser; and he was paid over $100,000 in tax payer money by the states of Arkansas and Florida to give "expert" testimony in court cases. In the Florida case, the judge dismissed his testimony as not credible because of the lack of reliable scientific studies to support it.

Preachers uneducated in scientific method may actually believe some of the "junk science" they quote; but a "professor of neuroscience" has no excuse for peddling studies whose methodologies are so flawed as to make them meaningless -- especially in court at taxpayers expense.

Rachel Madow did the best job of skewering Rekers on her show, culminating in reading the letter that his "imitation" organization, the American College of Pediatricians, sent to every public high school principle in the country, urging them to tell parents of teens struggling with same-sex desire that it can be treated with therapy. Four days after the letter was mailed, Rekers himself left for his erotic-massage trip with the hunky rentboy.

Contradiction? No, Rekers denies that he himself is gay. He just needed help with his luggage, and besides he tried to convert the rentboy to accept Jesus and give up his homosexuality. Let's see, now, was that while he giving him the erotic nude massage? Then after the scandal broke Rekers emailed advice to his rentboy on how to handle the media inquiries, saying "I have been through this before." Wonder why he's been through it before, if he's not gay?

Rekers and his cohorts hope that people will confuse their 200 member American College of Pediatricians with the prestigious 16,000 member American Academy of Pediatrics, to give an aura of credibility to their scare tactics and mis-information. In contrast, the Academy has been at the fore-front of professional organizations in promoting the acceptance of gay youths and debunking the misguided attempts to change their sexual orientation through therapy.

This is far bigger than closeted gay congressmen who vote against gay rights, or nutty Kansas preachers who picket funerals. Rekers has been an influential crusader, one of the leading anti-gay-rights activists. For him to go down in flames (pun intended) can only advance the cause of exposing the anti-gay movement to cleansing fresh air.

Ralph