The Outing of Anti-Gay George Rekers: A Discussion on Celebration vs Compassion

The Outing of Anti-Gay George Rekers: A Discussion on Celebration vs Compassion
Filed by: Waymon Hudson
May 5, 2010 3:00 PM

A question was recently posed to me that has me thinking about the recent news of virulently anti-gay Family Research Council co-founder (and confidant of James Dobson) George Rekers' outing after being discovered hiring a 20 year old male prostitute off RentBoys.com to "carry his luggage."

The question is this: should we temper our rightful message of glee over the damaging hypocrisy of Rekers with a message of compassion for someone who is obviously wrestling with internalized homophobia and self-hatred, something that is a huge problem in our community?

I'm not speaking of compassion for the man himself, but for the situation that LGBT people find themselves in even today- where religion and self-hatred warp their sense of self and cause deep emotional pain and rejection of their true selves. Is there a larger lesson, a teachable moment, in using Rekers himself as an example of the damage that anti-gay activism does to people?

To be honest, I have a huge problem feeling any compassion for Rekers. His life has been devoted to hatred and actively blocking rights for LGBT people. His anti-gay and ex-gay "research" have harmed all of us in courts and in the public debate on LGBT rights. I have a hard time not reveling in the fall of his influence and standing in the professional anti-gay machine that he helped create.

More:
http://www.bilerico.com/2010/05/the_outing_of_anti-gay_george_rekers_time_for_cele.php?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+BilericoProject+%28The+Bilerico+Project%29&utm_content=Twitter


Rekers hasn't asked for compassion yet. He's still (like Ted Haggard) claiming to be straight.

First he said he didn't know the guy was a prostitute, and then later that he hired the prostitute to preach Gospel to him.

Let's see him admit that he is gay and then ask for compassion, and then see him try to make ammends with those he has done so much to harm.


See prior thread:

chrisTian right leader George Rekers takes vacation with "rent boy"
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x4367951

and his rotten organization completely discredited and I want the whole scandal to make Christians a hell of a lot less trusting of all their antigay crusaders all over the world.

After that, maybe I'll spare a little compassion for a disgraced and powerless old man who's lived in the hell of a self loathing closet all his life.

While he's still pushing his poison, though, he can fucking forget it.

War is war and if they declare war on us then they had damn well better be wearing a cup or else leave the field.

If they want to start something they can't end then the last kind of ending they should get is a happy one.

and I don't give a shit about his feelings just as long as he is not trying to do harm to others.

In this case he deserves all the discomfort, hate, exposure and ridicule that can be mustered.

I would also like to AG McCollum exposed for the hypocrite that he is. He was one of the House handlers and biggest promoters of the Clinton impeachment over "moral" issues. Fuck him.

Until he admits the error of his ways and constructively works to undue the damage he did.



Love the way you made the screen shot safe for DU :)

Until then, glee remains an appropriate response.

His life has been ruined over this and he is a whole lot more innocent than Rekers.

He seems to have been coasting along just fine being duplicitous, hypocritical... and well-compensated. Hell, it even appears he has an active sex life.

No, up until a few days ago, Rekers seemed to be be perfectly comfortable with the life he'd constructed for himself.

And no one was forcing him to be a high-profile general in the sick, immoral war to destroy the lives of countless LGBT people. At any time, he could have chosen to step out of the public eye, and eased some of the alleged burden he allegedly carried. Yet he chose not to.

Guess the perks were too good to give up. Occasional boy-toy included.

So, no... I see no evidence that he was "obviously wrestling with internalized homophobia and self-hatred."

Personally, I don't have an ounce of compassion for him. He has not been a victim of homophobia, internalized or otherwise. He's been a purveyor of it.

... RentBoy.com offers boys who wrestle, too.

The only thing he's "wrestling" with is regret that he got caught.

Glee and ridicule are perfectly appropriate responses. Perhaps the most effective weapon against this sort of bigot is to greet their fulminations with smirks and observations that they "doth protest too much" -- that hits them right at their weak point and makes the sort of people who might be receptive to their message afraid to be associated with them.

At the end of the day, he has spent his entire life lying. To everyone. And he has spent his entire life in fear. Of everyone.

We each find our own path in accepting our orientation. Many of us - most of us, I would wager - muddle through the pain, the fear, the difficulties as best we can and come out ok in the end.

Some people never make it out of that journey alive.

Others never find an end to that road.

And then there are those, like Rekers, who are twisted, embittered, and destroyed by it. So he was.

It's difficult not to pity that, because I understand the temptation of succumbing to the pressure, familial, religious, and cultural. Before I came out, there were many times when I entertained the masquerade of a wife and children - of lying. That would be easier, no? There were times during my years in the closet when I heard homophobic comments or jokes, and chuckled or smiled slightly or went along with it. When we're afraid of being cast out, the temptation is always there to cleave that much more strongly to fitting in.

But pity isn't the same thing as forgiveness or justification or excuse. This man will fall, professionally and personally. He deserves to. He will now reap so much of what he has sewn. It's tragic. Tragic for him and his family, but more tragic for the thousands, if not millions, of lives he damaged or ruined because he could not be brave enough to face down his own demons.

Perhaps he will make amends. It would be the least he could do. Or perhaps he'll simply spin off into the darkness, a damaged irreparable soul, another victim of our homophobic cultures and religions. And yes, he is a victim. He was not born this monster - he was made it by those around him.

Celebrate? Nah. I understand the impulse and don't begrudge those who want to. Whenever I see incidents like this, I only feel inexpressible sadness. Because it is sad. Sad that he was twisted into that and could not find the dignity or self-respect to right himself, and sad because his lack of courage and decency is responsible for so much pain to my community.

Just sad.

You summed it up well.

but he spend his life advancing a homophobic agenda that hurt other gay people. this is a case of reaping what you've sown, imho. i have no problem with his sexuality, but i have a huge problem with his political agenda.

Howard v. Arkansas - George Rekers Fact Sheet

October 4, 2004
George Rekers Fact Sheet

Dr. George A. Rekers is the state's expert witness in Howard v. Child Welfare Agency Review Board, in which the Lesbian and Gay Rights Project at the American Civil Liberties Union represents three prospective foster parents in challenging a law that bars gay people and people in households with gay family members from foster parenting.

* Rekers is one of the founders of the Family Research Council, a notoriously anti-gay group.
* Rekers relies on the discredited research of Paul Cameron, an anti-gay ""researcher"" who was kicked out of the American Psychological Association for misrepresenting the research regarding homosexuality.
* Rekers has suggested that gays are unsuitable to serve as foster parents because they're at higher risk for AIDS and other sexually-transmitted disease, ignoring the fact that there is a physical examination required of all foster parent applicants in Arkansas that would weed out any applicants with health conditions that could jeopardize a foster child.
* Rekers says that children are best served when raised by both a mother and a father, but doesn't favor excluding single heterosexual single women from fostering.
* Rekers is an ordained minister in the southern Baptist convention. He has strong religious beliefs about homosexuality and the role of men and women, including the belief that married women should be submissive to their husband's leadership in the home.
* Rekers practices ""conversion therapy,"" the attempt to ""cure"" people of being gay.
Rekers has said he favors pulling children from long-term placements with gay foster parents if the opportunity arises to place them in homes headed by straight parents even though, as he acknowledges, research shows such transitions are traumatic for children.

http://www.aclu.org/lgbt-rights_hiv-aids/howard-v-arkansas-george-rekers-fact-sheet

It's a bit like having pity or compassion for a murderer (and given the suicide rates of LGBT youth because of religious persecution and bigotry, I don't think the comparison is that far off). Sometimes, when I learn a murderer had been severely abused as a child, I'll feel pity or compassion towards them. That doesn't negate my opinion that they deserve life without parole or that their crime can never be forgiven and amends made. The overriding thought is "What a tragic waste of life."

It's kind of how I feel here. Homophobia generates homophobia. And homophobia kills. Bigotry in, bigotry out, and so much destruction in its wake. And for what? Meaningless hatred.

one who is no doubt having to face some consequences because of the choices he made. i know plenty of people who can't/won't come out, but none of them masquerade as homophobes. he is now being held accountable for the choices he made, as it should be. if he had not chosen to be a vocal, public homophobe, his dalliance with a "rent boy" would not be an issue.

have been hiding it for a long time.

You can find them in the Seminaries and the Headquarters of the denominations.

They don't go out and become experts promoting Anti-Gay trash.

Take all of the gay aspects out of this and the guy is an intellectual fraud.

No sympathy. He caused pain. I wonder how many suicides were the result of the last little push that his expert testimony caused.

I have a ton of sympathy for gay guys in the Church - I went to Seminary and realized that there is a higher percentage of gay guys in the ministry than in the general population.

They marry and adapt going into non parish work so that they can serve and remain hidden. Those guys I feel sorry for.

Reker wanted to be a general in the anti gay crusade. Nothing that happens to him is too severe in my book.

He made many vile choices - all his. He caused more suffering for the LGBT community than most individuals in America. I mean, the Family Research Council! Whatever whirlwind coming his way will be the wages of his homophobic sins.

He's an extreme example of how homophobia can damage someone. When you think about the severe mental effects the closet can have, I am never surprised to learn a Rekers has resulted. When we see hundreds of LGBT people every year who fear outing more than death itself, it speaks to the strong psychological and cultural forces at work. In this case, Rekers became something of a megalomaniacal sociopath.

When we think of what homophobia does to people, we usually think of a tortured youth, a married individual with children who is deep within the closet, gay bashing, employment and marriage discrimination, etc.

But Rekers is a side effect, too. When you teach people to hate a fundamental part of their own humanity, that will break some of them. It will warp their soul. They will lose all dignity. I don't think anyone in Rekers' position gets there without experiencing a lot of pain and living their entire life in fear.

I have compassion for that, but not his actions. And whatever the consequences, he has done plenty to deserve them. I won't be sorry for what happens to him from this point on. But I am sorry for the reasons his life reached this point. Anti-gay hatred played its role very well.

than to see another RW dirtbag destroyed by their own hypocrisy.

actively campaign against the interests of the gay community get what's coming to them.

Everyone has a right to their private lives. The second you decide to advance your own personal interests at the expense of the community you belong to is the second you can no longer expect for us to protect your privacy.

Q3JR4.
_{In my not so humble opinion.}

Imagine having to boof THAT...I hope he got hazard pay!

in Ian David's OP. :rofl: he lives in Brooklyn last time I spoke to him (which has been awhile) and his "porn name" is Cory Koons. I used to talk to him on tribe.net where he has/had a profile under his real name.

it's a small world...

The man is an emotional wreck, and a pathetic creature... like Gollum. But he decided to stand up and be counted with the enemy of everything we are.

He should not only be ridiculed, but hounded until he dies, and all of the money he's made should be taken from him and distributed to places that help troubled kids from broken homes that this man breaks.

There's another thing. There's no contrition from this pig! Why should I offer any sympathy, if he is still an unapologetic pig?

Screw Rekers...apologize for all the hamr you've done and then we'll talk.

in the suppression of anyone's rights!! :mad:

karma is a m.f.

Fuck that loser hypocrite. I hope he hangs himself.

But I just don't. Homophobia may have been the root cause of his damage, but he responded to that by perpetuating that hate and damage as much as he could. Which, unfortunately, was a lot.

Frankly, I kind of hope there's a video and the rent boy will get 15 minutes of fame and a good deal of money out of further exposure and humiliation of this creep.

Ian, I did a double-take when I saw how you "censored" the web site. I thought - wow, what a turnoff, isn't that counterproductive for a sex site? :blush: :rofl:

Nope.