Meet George Alan Reker. He is a former professor, and a big time activist in anti-gay circles. He was on the founding board of the Family Research Council with James Dobson. He has been an "expert" witness in testimony before congress, an adviser to the White House, and in the Florida ban on gay adoption. He speaks all over the world on teen sexuality and "Gender Identity Disorder". He has of course said that the Bible is the infallible word of God and homosexuality is a sin. He is also a humongous hypocrite.
You see he recently returned from vacations to Europe and Bermuda with a young male prostitute called "Lucien" for the purposes of anonymity. He initially said he'd brought Lucien along to carry his luggage since he'd recently had surgery, but since he found Lucien on a site called Rentboys (NSFW) where he had to scroll through a number of pornographic images and videos to find a candidate several pages in advertised as having a "perfectly built 8 inch cock" and "up for anything" as long as you pay the thousands of dollars per day a boy from this site costs plus all travel expenses... that is a very expensive porter.
Mr. Reker later added that it was for evangelism purposes. In other words he, a 61 year old man, scanned through pages and pages of pornography to pick out a 20 year old male prostitute to pay thousands of dollars to go to exotic locations to... convert him.
Look, I don't care what Mr. Reker did or didn't do in those joint hotel rooms in Bermuda and Spain with Lucien. Reker can join the long list of bigoted hypocrites who have been exposed like Paul Cameron and Ted Haggard. No surprise really. These men believe against all evidence and common sense that homosexuality is a terrible disease which can be cured by lunatic methods. It is evident that they are themselves very sick.
No, what concerns me is the huge number of Christians who despite constant overwhelming evidence and the repeated blatant hypocrisy of their brightest lights and leaders will continue to regard organizations like NARTH as respectable and continue to peddle the same bull to the great harm of LGBT people everywhere, and the shame of Christians around the world.
What makes all of this more disgusting is that I will get told I am abandoning the gospel and ruining the church because I want gay people to be able to visit their loved ones in the hospital or dedicate their lives in service to Christ through ordained ministry, while people will make all sorts of excuses for those who want to be able to buy barely legal sex-workers a third their age, and snort crystal meth off of their chiseled abs.
12 comments:
Hypocrisy, not homosexuality is the true enemy of Christianity.
So fighting day and night to prevent LGBTQ people from having their monogamous relationships recognized is righteous work. It is especially righteous when you bring in the fake science to make what you're doing sound super-smart. Doing all that good work, I guess he felt he had earned himself some illicit sex with a same-gender prostitute, followed by some lying about same.
Because he's really concerned about values.
...and maybe he is, who knows?
This will be sold as another "one bad apple" situation, and I'm sure they'll just find someone twice as zealous who is actually heterosexual (and better at hiding his proclivities) and the story won't change significantly.
'Reker's personal failure is so sad', they'll say, 'but it doesn't reflect the righteousness of what we're about.' And we'll just have more pseudo-science and repression and teenagers encouraged to become just like Mr. Reker - deny who you are so that we will find you acceptable, or be ostracized and disowned by your family and community.
Looks like the "Dr. Liberace's He-Man Quackery Camps" that he advocates didn't work so well for him.
These stories are just no longer surprising. These days I simply assume that if someone is a homophobe they're also a closet case. The evidence is just too overwhelming. Truthfully, aren't there several folks in the PCUSA that seem just a bit *too* obsessed with teh gay to be completely straight themselves?
It used to be that the stereotypical gay man was an effeminate well-dressed florist or hairstylist. Now the stereotype is more accurately a corpulent Christian blow-hard in a bad suit spouting anti-gay rhetoric.
@ Alan
I also love House :)
That was a great episode, actually because it presented the very best argument against ex-gay therapy. It wasn't the screwed-up description of the therapy itself. It wasn't the question of being true to yourself.
It was the simple question, "Would you want your daughter to marry a man who used to be gay, and supposedly was converted into being straight?"
Ah, but I bet he is repentant! That makes it all OK, you know. It's these unrepentant LGBTs that are ruining everything.
He won't be the last.
That's pretty darned funny... Always watch out for the self righteous, most have something to hide.
As for my personal position, I don't have a problem with civil unions - I think anybody should be able to enter into a civil contract with whoever they choose. I don't think that people can change their sexuality unless they are bisexual and choose to act monogamously. As far as the church and ordination goes, I think that is a different problem altogether.
Happy to discuss it if you'd like to, just throwing in my 2 cents.
Dale
There just isn't a civil argument against civil unions for homosexuals, and I think that the government should have nothing whatsoever to do with marriage, only with civil unions. Then the churches work out what marriage will mean in any given place (no gays, no interracial marriages, explicitly patriarchal marriage, whatever floats your theological boat)
I'm pretty much libertarian on that myself. Agree with everything you said. Here's another question -
should a civil union be able to include more than 2 individuals? We have lots of immigrants from other countries and religions that allow civil marriage between more than 2 parties. Are we discriminating by insisting that these people live in a Christian marriage of exclusively 2 people? For that matter, why should someone who is bisexual have to choose between homosexual or heterosexual marriage?
Just another late night thought.
Dale
Good slippery slope question. I think that it makes sense for there to be some kind of civil agreement that someone can enter into with more than one other person, but at this point we start moving toward mass marriages, and I wouldn't want to follow this logic all they way to "My 12 moms" territory.
Where polygamy is practiced, it is pretty much universally oppressive of women, open to marrying what we consider underage women, etc., and I do think we have some interest in not supporting civil agreements that are on their face unequitable.
I would also want to see some information on how kids who are raised in plural marriages turn out. We know that kids raised by same-sex parents turn out pretty much the same as kids from hetero parents, but I haven't seen information on how kids turn out with multiple parents.
All at the same time, since millions of kids have multiple parents as they move through step-parents and so on.
hey, Dale thanks for chiming in.
I'm with you both on the government getting out of the marriage business and just doing civil unions regardless of gender. I think polygamy/polygyny/polyamory are different questions than homosexuality, though I know the analogy gets made. A critical factor for me from a civil perspective on the purpose of such a union is the matter of equality. Under law both parties in a civil union deserve equal protection, equal ownership etc... That is easy to work out with 2 parties and complicated with more than 2.
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