George Rekers, the "expert" witness hired by Attorney General Bill McCollum to defend Florida's anti-gay adoption ban has been caught with a male prostitute at the Miami airport. the story has been making waves across the Internet and even on late-night TV's Tonight Show with Jay Leno.
Rekers was one of only two witnesses Attorney General Bill McCollum called in an effort to reverse a Miami judge who ruled Florida's anti-gay adoption ban - the only one in the country - is unconstitutional.
McCollum paid Rekers a $60,000 retainer for testimony that called gay people mentally unstable. Rekers also testified that the ban should be expanded to include Native Americans who he said are at higher risk of mental illness and substance abuse.
"They would tend to hang around each other. So, the children would be around a lot of other Native Americans who are … doing the same sorts of things."
This latest controversy may shed new light on how outrageously biased and scientifically unsupported Rekers' testimony has been. Courts in Arkansas and Florida have declared him "not credible" as a witness.
"It is disgraceful that the attorney general used taxpayer dollars to compensate this discredited bigot-for-hire," said Nadine Smith, executive director for Equality Florida. "It shows just how low they have to scrape to find anyone even willing to defend this awful ban that denies children permanent loving homes."
According to a report by the Miami New Times:
The male prostitute, Lucien, arrived at Miami International Airport on Iberian Airlines Flight 6123, after a ten-day, fully subsidized trip to Europe . He was soon followed out of customs by an old man with an atavistic mustache and a desperate blond comb-over, pushing an overburdened baggage cart.
That man was George Alan Rekers, of North Miami — the callboy's client and, as it happens, one of America 's most prominent anti-gay activists.
This is just the latest in a long string of controversies with Rekers at the center.
He is the founder of the rabidly anti-gay Family Research Council and serves on the board of directors for the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality, which advocates "reparative therapy" to turn gays straight, a harmful practice strongly discouraged by the American Psychological Association.
As a paid witness, Reker relies on long-discredited research to justify banning gay people from adopted and dismisses peer-reviewed studies showing that children of gay parents are as well off as those of straight parents, testifying that he opposes gay parenting even if it flies in the face of scientific research.
In court, Rekers said that he favored removing children from any gay home in favor of a straight home, even if the child had been there 10 years.
On Nov. 25, Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Cindy Lederman struck down the adoption ban calling "illogical to the point of irrationality" and allowed Frank Gill to adopt two children he had foster parented for six years. In her ruling, Lederman dismissed testimony from Rekers describing it as biased. "Dr. Rekers' beliefs are motivated by his strong ideological and theological convictions., she wrote. "The court cannot consider his testimony to be credible nor worthy of forming the basis of public policy."
Reker and his equally anti-gay colleague Walter Schumm were the only witnesses the state bothered to call. The ACLU, representing Frank Gill and his sons, filled the courtroom with child welfare experts and adoption and foster care specialists who testified that denying the adoption and removing the boys would inflict harm on the children.
Equality Florida is the largest human rights organization dedicated to securing full equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Floridians.
HRC Statement on George Alan Rekers
Leading anti-gay voice involved with male sex worker
WASHINGTON — Upon news that George Alan Rekers — a founder of the Family Research Council and a leading voice in the anti-LGBT movement — vacationed in Europe with a male sex worker, Human Rights Campaign Religion and Faith Program Director Harry Knox made the following statement:
"My heart is broken as I read of Rev. George Rekers' hypocrisy. I hurt for the thousands of lesbian, gay and bisexual people he has caused to be put through discredited pseudo-therapies in an attempt to change the God-given gift of their sexual orientation. I hurt for the children who are still in foster care that Rekers helped prevent from finding permanent loving homes with gay parents in Florida and Arkansas. And I feel pain for George Rekers himself, who is the first and worst victim of his internalized homophobia.
"Jesus said, 'You will know the truth and the truth will set you free.' The truth has come out about George Rekers. Let us pray that it sets him, and the rest of us, free."
The story was first reported earlier this week by the Miami New Times. Rekers is a leading proponent of discredited "change" therapies that have been proven to be damaging for lesbian, gay and bisexual people. He testified in court in favor of keeping Florida's ban on gays and lesbians from adopting children.
