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Rekers Rent Boy Scandal Re-Erupts
The story continues:
BY MARY ELLEN KLAS Herald/Times Tallahassee Bureau TALLAHASSEE -- Disgraced psychologist George Rekers was labeled a ``right-wing, religious-based'' expert witness and rejected for months by state attorneys defending Florida's gay adoption ban. But when they couldn't find anyone else to replace him on the witness stand, Attorney General Bill McCollum overruled his trial attorneys, quickly hired Rekers, and paid him twice his agreed upon contract with no questions asked, according to documents released this week by McCollum's office. Rekers, a psychiatry professor at the University of South Carolina, has been stripped of his credibility after reports surfaced that he hired a gay male escort to give him nude ``sexual'' massages and accompany him on a recent European vacation. The adoption ban case, in which the state paid Rekers more than $120,000 to testify on the ``negative effects'' of gay parenting, has been ruled unconstitutional and the state is appealing.Attorney General McCollum is running for the GOP nomination for governor of Florida, and says that if he had to do it all over again, he wouldn't. But it may already be too late. Rekers, a Baptist minister and professor emeritus of neuropsychology at the University of South Carolina was co-founder and first chairman and CEO of the Family Research Council and has been one of the leading anti-gay academics in the United States for decades. Until his recent resignation, he served as a director of NARTH (National Association for Research and Therapy for Homosexuality) the leading promoter of therapies they claim can cure homosexuality. There are few people who have been as influential as Rekers in this area. But the Miami New Times which broke the rent boy story notes: While McCollum's office defends Reker's six-figure fee, his testimony was completely ignored by Miami-Dade Judge Cindy Lederman in the case where a gay man was trying to officially adopt two boys he had cared for for years despite Florida's ban on adoption by homosexuals. "Dr. Rekers' testimony was far from a neutral and unbiased recitation of the relevant scientific evidence. Dr. Rekers' beliefs are motivated by his strong ideological and theological convictions that are not consistent with the science. Based on his testimony and demeanor at trial, the court can not consider his testimony to be credible nor worthy of forming the basis of public policy," Lederman wrote in her November 2008 decision.The New York Times reported that even before the rent boy scandal, Rekers's credibility as a witness may have been sufficiently demolished that he may no longer be useful in antigay court cases. This may have broad implications for antigay public policy, since Rekers has been a widely published scholar in this area. It looks too, like the Rekers rent boy debacle may derail the career of a major pol who has built a career by pandering to the Religious Right. The Rekers rent boy scandal is about much, much more than the personal hypocrisy of one professional antigay activist. It throws open a window on an important dimension for anyone who is serious enough to look.
Rekers Rent Boy Scandal Re-Erupts | 2 comments (2 topical, 0 hidden)
Rekers Rent Boy Scandal Re-Erupts | 2 comments (2 topical, 0 hidden)
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