Rekers Resigns from NARTH Due to Rent Boy Scandal
Frederick Clarkson printable version print page     Bookmark and Share
Fri May 14, 2010 at 01:34:05 AM EST
Longtime Religious Right leader Rev. Dr. George Rekers who has been embroiled in a gay sex scandal for the past two weeks, has resigned from the board of directors of NARTH (National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality.) He issued this statement on the NARTH web site:
"I am immediately resigning my membership in NARTH to allow myself the time necessary to fight the false media reports that have been made against me. With the assistance of a defamation attorney, I will fight these false reports because I have not engaged in any homosexual behavior whatsoever. I am not gay and never have been."  --George A. Rekers, Ph.D.

The Miami New Times that broke and has led the reporting of the story that Rekers had hired a male prostitute to travel with him to Europe adds that from now on he will travel with his wife or his sons if he needs help with his luggage.

While Rekers works to clear his name, Attorney General Bill McCollumn, who is running for the Republican nomination for governor is also having a rough go of it. He has, for example, recently been taken to task by Orlando Sentinel columnist Scott Maxwell.  McCollum, who hired Rekers for his expert testimony (to the tune of $120,000) in a court case over gay adoptions, has tried to downplay his position:

Faced with mounting criticism about why he would try to tear a happy family apart in the first place, McCollum tried to con people into believing he didn't want to ... that he was merely doing his job.

McCollum tried to take my fellow columnist, Mike Thomas, for a ride on this one. After Mike asked McCollum whether he personally supported the ban on gay adoption, McCollum batted his eyes and said he had a gay staffer who had adopted children in another state.

"Lets leave it at that," McCollum then said.

This was supposed to be McCollum's little wink and nod to the liberal media -- not to mention the majority of Americans who oppose Florida's outdated law -- that he's really on their side.

Maxwell says this is "Horse hockey."

Two years ago, when McCollum was addressing Republicans  in Indian River County, he promised to fight as hard as he could to keep gays from ever adopting children in this state. "We're going to go to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals and we're going to argue their socks off," he said to a round of applause, according to the Press Journal of Vero Beach. "We happen to believe in this party that this state law is the right law."

This is also a guy who tried to ban gay adoption in Congress -- and one of the few congressmen in all of America to oppose Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a national holiday.

You can try telling your different stories to different crowds all you want. But the truth is: You're at the forefront of discrimination in this country.

You're helping lead the fight to keep innocent children away from loving parents. And you wasted more money than most Floridians make in two years paying off a discredited hack who peddles in bigotry.




Display:
The 2010 NARTH Convention
November 5, 6 and 7
Renaissance Philadelphia Hotel

by Frederick Clarkson on Fri May 14, 2010 at 02:20:19 AM EST

Professor George Rekers is still totally heterosexual...

or so he says.

by tacitus on Sat May 15, 2010 at 05:55:17 AM EST



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