Post about "Dan Savage"

The week-long party that ensued in the LGBT community after the lead expert witness against Florida gay adoption was caught in a compromising situation has ended. The cleanup has begun, and so have the thoughtful blog and video pieces that are pointing out the fall of George Alan Rekers was different than all the others.

Right wing and/or religious leaders whose anti-gay rhetoric belie their own bisexuality has become a meme. Craig Ferguson based a bit on it in his opening monologue Wednesday: “If you’re really, really anti-gay…you’re probably gay.” The unfunny Jay Leno even got a laugh out of it. Jimmy Kimmel piled on. Stephen Colbert gave Rekers his Alpha Dog of the Week award, Jon Stewart mocked him using a piece from CNN.

But now that the laughing is dying down, we’re starting to explain how this scandal is different, and why it represents a turning point in the struggle for gay equality. The affair of Ted Haggard was most like that of Rekers; a pay for sex/companionship arrangement that went bad when the sexworker exposed him.

It differed because the escort initiated the expose, and because Haggard had steered clear of anti-gay rhetoric except for a sermon which was his karmic moment: If you don’t want to be caught doing something, he preached, you shouldn’t do it.

But the media and much of the public, LGBT and otherwise, turned on Haggard’s accuser too, and a plea to not repeat that mistake this time: “Let’s Not Chew This One Up and Spit Him Out” by Dan Savage is one of the best thoughtful overviews. As is Rachael Maddow’s piece on Friday, on why the Rekers story is newsworthy beyond the titillating.

Throughout the scandal, the blog Joe My God has provided the best overall coverage linking blogs and news sites that carried all facets of the story. He also did one of the best interviews with the escort, even though CNN had better access but did a poorer job.

Now, the morning after the week long party, there is a sadness expressed on twitter and in the comments on the hundreds of blog pieces that covered this. The more one studies the Rekers/escort relationship and Rekers testimony, the more profound the sadness becomes.

When a 20-year old boy explains that his john appears to not understand his own sexuality, and when that john bases his “expert” testimony in a gay-adoption case on the higher levels of suicide, substance abuse, depression and affective disorder in the LGBT community, the closed loop becomes obvious.

George Alan Rekers is a victim of the very belief system he perpetuates through the self-fulfilling prophesy of using statistics that demonstrate oppression to justify continued oppression. That is why the specific facts of this scandal have lasting value when those before it do not. It shows the so-called “experts” of the anti-gay right have far less understanding of the psychology of LGBT people than the escorts who carry their luggage.