Religious Right scholar, anti-gay activist and NARTH officer Dr George Rekers has responded directly to blogger Joe. My. God following the report that he took a vacation with a male prostitute he’d met through the sexually explicit website Rentboy.com.
Wrote Rekers:
I have spent much time as a mental health professional and as a Christian minister helping and lovingly caring for people identifying themselves as “gay.” My hero is Jesus Christ who loves even the culturally despised people, including sexual sinners and prostitutes. Like Jesus Christ, I deliberately spend time with sinners with the loving goal to try to help them. Mark 2:16-17 reads, “16When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the “sinners” and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: “Why does he eat with tax collectors and ‘sinners’?” 17On hearing this, Jesus said to them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” In fact, in a dialogue with hypocritical religious leaders, Jesus even stated to them, “I tell you the truth, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you. 32For John came to you to show you the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes did. And even after you saw this, you did not repent and believe him. ” (Matthew 21:31).
Like John the Baptist and Jesus, I have a loving Christian ministry to homosexuals and prostitutes in which I share the Good News of Jesus Christ with them (see I Corinthians 6:8-11). Contrary to false gossip, innuendo, and slander about me, I do not in any way “hate” homosexuals, but I seek to lovingly share two types of messages to them, as I did with the young man called “Lucien” in the news story: [1] It is possible to cease homosexual practices to avoid the unacceptable health risks associated with that behavior, and [2] the most important decision one can make is to establish a relationship with God for all eternity by trusting in Jesus Christ’s sacrifice on the cross for the forgiveness of your sins, including homosexual sins. If you talk with my travel assistant that the story called “Lucien,” you will find I spent a great deal of time sharing scientific information on the desirability of abandoning homosexual intercourse, and I shared the Gospel of Jesus Christ with him in great detail.
I wonder… if “Saint George” is so innocent, WHY has the Family Research Council already removed him from their entire website? It’s as if he never existed! Surely, his gawdly approach to working with such ‘sinners’ would be seen as blessed work!
I do actually know of open-minded evangelical ministers who live in predominantly gay areas of cities who seek to do ministry to gays and lesbians who have been rejected by the traditional church (e.g. Andrew Marin, author of “Love is an Orientation”). However, this is highly suspicious and the original explanation given by Rekers, namely that he hired him to transport his luggage, is, besides ridiculous, contradictory to this statement. The obvious way to expose this man is to interview Lucien himself. If by some stretch of the imagination Rekers is telling the truth, he acted unprofessionally and unwisely, though I’m inclined to believe that in this case the way it looks is the way it is.
“Lucien” (who has now been identified elsewhere on the web) has already given the most pertinent information: He and Rekers met through the very sexually explicit gay website Rentboy.com. It’s not the sort of site you frequent without realizing what you’re doing. Rekers denied it. ‘Nuff said, really.
Whatever did or did not go on behind the closed door of the room they shared (it did have twin beds after all! according to one of Recker’s emails), there is nothing innocent about hiring a male escort from a site like rentboy for a 10-day vacation. But given the capacity for self-delusion in the NARTH camp, I wouldn’t surprise me if Recker somehow convinced himself that his intention truly was to save a poor lost lamb.
Sometimes we forget just how wierd much of this ex-gay/reparative therapy nonsense gets. One of the guys I met in a therapy group in Joe Nicolosi’s office told me the big thing for a while was naked non-sexual hugging. Just what it sounds like: two or three guys would get together, get naked, and hold each other without getting sexually aroused. This was supposed to help struggling ex-gays create the innocent physical bonds they failed to form with other guys growing up.
Because we all know how much naked hugging straight guys do when they’re little!
From non-sexual naked hugging to Cohen’s pillow beating to Recker’s evangelistic outreach to rent boys–these people are so out of touch with reality that I’d feel sorry for them, if they didn’t also do so much damage.
One of the first things you learn in psychological training are all the ways clients exhibit denial.
Methinks Dr. Rekers was absent during those years of classes.
That being the case, I wholeheartedly agree with you. ‘Nuff said.
As the coroner in the OJ Simpson case once famously said, this doesn’t pass the smell test.
Will the good doctor Rekers climb up on a cross like his hero Jesus Christ and ascend into heaven too? And how exactly did he “reveal,” to use his words, the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the fallen Lucian? Were bathrobes suddenly parting in hotel rooms involved?
Odd in the face of all this selfless ministry that at first the good doctor claimed he had no idea that this boy he hired through the innocently named Rentboy.com was a prostitute. No mention of teaching the Sermon on the Mount there. In fact, the doctor was shocked and sadden to learn the harsh truth about the gentle man-child who carried his bags for 10 days through Europe and who, hidden in the first line of his self-description on Rentboy.com advertised the sweetness of his hairless rear and the prodigious length of his robust front.
Nothing about muscle strength for lifting suitcases.
Shocked and saddened was Dr. Reker in this early draft of the tale. But now the record has been very much set straight. In their single hotel room, Dr. Reker proclaims, they past the long Roman nights “sharing scientific information on the desirability of abandoning homosexual intercourse.”
Oh, how they desired it. One or the other of them, we are sure, sweated blood.
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I was very confused by the seemingly conflicting messages in this case. The media seem to be saying Reckers is a self-loathing closet case who wields undue influence in government and religious circles to deny gays civil rights while simultaneously and secretly hiring a young gay male prostitute for a 10-day vacation. The media is painting him out to be a homo-hypo-(crit). On the other hand, Mr. Reckers has clearly stated that he was “sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ with him in great detail.” While confusing on the surface, I did find a way to reconcile the two. Mr. Reckers must be referring to his “man hole” as “The Gospel of Jesus Christ” to whom he shared with “geo” “in great detail”. I think I’ll go out and share the Gospel tonight myself! Any takers?
He is a liar!