Post about "George Alan Rekers"

Liberty Counsel, the right wing religious legal group famous for amicus briefs in “10 commandments in the courtroom” cases, says they’ll back George Rekers should he decide to sue, reports today’s Washington Times. The article quotes Matthew Staver, dean of Falwell’s Liberty University School of Law. Since Mr. Staver’s private practice took place primarily in Orlando, Florida there is a distinct possibility should there be an action, he’d be involved.

I’m not an attorney, just an old news guy fascinated by communication law, but I see two problems here.

First, there is a strong possibility that George Rekers is a public figure. Since New York Times v. Sullivan, public figures have had a tough time suing for defamation. The theory is that robust public debate trumps the rights of an individual who is an actor in that public debate.

“Sullivan” was the police commissioner of Montgomery, Alabama and though he wasn’t even explicitly named, he believed he was held up to ridicule because of an advertisement in the NYT Times that attempted to raise funds to defend Dr. Martin Luther King against a trumped up Alabama perjury indictment.

Rekers was a founder and member of the board of a high profile organization that took an extreme position in an area of great controversy. Much of his income came from expert testimony in widely publicized cases that were extensively written about in the press. In two of these cases he was excoriated for testimony that was worthless and biased. This too was widely reported in the press.

When his activity, most of which he does not deny, became public knowledge, he was further elevated to prominence as the subject of the opening monologues on nearly every late night show, from Colbert to Craig Ferguson.

Should he file a case, that too will be newsworthy, and will have the additional protection that, because it’s litigation, it can be publicly discussed with impunity.

Second, we are now starting to see “he called me queer” cases being thrown out of court on the grounds that an imputation of homosexuality is not defamatory.

So once again, “poor” Mr. Rekers finds himself in the damnedest position. If he sues, the very defense in the case is going to highlight the struggle of a minority to even find a level playing field to argue its oppression against the person fueling that oppression. Rekers will find himself compared with the police commissioner of racist Montgomery, Alabama in the day of MLK.

In claiming he’s injured by being called gay, he will unwittingly call his own life’s work into question, because the very injury he’s claiming is one he has spent his professional life fostering.

He’ll serve himself up on a platter for every op-ed writer in the country that needs to fill 14 paragraphs with topical edginess, and they’ll be able to do it under the doctrine of qualified privilege.

Wouldn’t surprise me if he does sue. It’s the worst possible thing a man in his position can do, and he’s never failed to take the worst option before.

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.

Professional anti-gay psychologist George Alan Rekers was photographed at Miami International Airport with a 20-year-old boy by New Times Contributor Brandon K. Thorp. Result: yet another fall from grace by a paid propagandist for right wing causes. This time, the fallen is the expert witness used to derail gay adoption.

Rekers was a co-founder of the Family Research Council, though it has developed a sudden case of selective amnesia. The New Times story reported that the 20-year-old was an escort whom Rekers hired off the sexworker/bodyworker site rentboy.com. It appears the reporters were able to do so, because the escort, whom they called “Lucien” confirmed it in exchange for not being identified in the story.

But while the right wing organizations that used to tout Dr. Rekers on their websites have been busy scrubbing their sites*of any mention of his name, another story has been developing: several gay news sites have been seeking the identity of “Lucien,” and it appears they’ve been successful.

There’s been a pretty hearty debate on blogs and in the comments on stories about “Lucien” (whom the Advocate identifies as Jo-vanni Roman) over whether he has any expectation of privacy and whether specifics about him should or should not be revealed.

But there’s another question here: does “Lucien” have a professional responsibility, one like journalists or priests or doctors, to protect the specific details of his relationship with his john? This is not about Rekers: he’s a hypocrite of the worst order, its all about the rentboy. We saw this question raised with Mike Jones, who outed Ted Haggard, and its probably the next question in the very public deconstruction of the Rekers/Lucien relationship.

What he’s done so far doesn’t really breach any confidentiality. He confirmed who he was and why he was there and he hasn’t yet taken the bait to give blow-by-blow descriptions, with a not-too-artful hint that he might have done so if it could somehow have been off-the-record. Though Reker deserves to be called out for his lame attempts at denial, the world’s oldest profession deserves something too. It deserves professionals as practitioners.

UPDATE: Jo-vanni Roman takes Unzipped’s bait.

UPDATE II: Roman takes the bait with the hook, and goes all the way with New Times.

UPDATE III: University of South Carolina Medical School joins the “scrub away the gay” party and removes Dr. Rekers. Box Turtle Bulletin has the legacy screencapture.

* Ex-Gay Watch reports the changes to the Family Research Council were made before the Rekers trip, possibly as far back as 2007.