Anti-gay preacher sued over sex with young men.

This is not personally surprising to me. This has happened so often that I have come to expect it. I generally assume that any anti-gay bigot is going to be exposed eventually. Bishop Long is a fundamentalist Baptist, a leading black conservative, and an active opponent to equality of rights for gay people.

This report indicates that two young men from Long's church have said he regularly seduced them and offered them material goods in exchange for sex. As I understand it, a third law suit, from yet another young man, has been filed well. Catching an anti gay conservative in bed with men is about as rare as finding out that the priest has been molesting children.

It must be Christmas 'cause the goose is cooked.

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Curious George and the Case of the Long Stroke

I have already covered the initial revelations about anti-gay fundamentalist Baptist minister George Rekers. As I suspected this story has more to it than meets the eye, and none of it is good for Rev. Rekers.

First, let me make clear that Rekers is a proper subject for scrutiny. You will remember I did a post on why I would have nothing to say about the sex life of Tiger Woods. I wrote:

Mr. Woods does nor take it upon himself to try to arbitrate the morality of others, as do the Catholic hierarchy and fundamentalist Christians. Mr. Woods does not attempt to pass laws to control the sex lives of others as do the Republicans and various conservatives. Mr. Woods has, to my knowledge, never publicly expressed an opinion attacking others for their sex lives. In other words, Mr. Woods has basically respected the rights of others to live their own lives according to their own values.

Rekers is precisely a legitimate target for the very reasons that Woods was not. Rekers does attempt to pass laws to control others, he does publicly denounce the private lives of others, he doesn't respect the rights of others to live their own lives according to their own values. He attempts to force his values on others. And Rekers uses tax fund to push his bigotry and prejudice (and apparently self-loathing). Rekers was a paid "expert" brought in by the Republican Attorney General of Florida to testify as to why gay people should be forbidden by law to adopt children. Rekers and an associate were paid a total of $87,000 in tax funds to legitamize anti-gay legislation. Now we know how he can afford to put a male prostitute on the clock for ten days.

The judge in the case dismissed Rekers' testimony saying: "Dr. Rekers’ testimony was far from a neutral and unbiased recitation of the relevant scientific evidence. Dr. Rekers’ beliefs are motivated by his strong ideological and theological convictions that are not consistent with the science. Based on his testimony and demeanor at trial, the court can not consider his testimony to be credible nor worthy of forming the basis of public policy."

In another case Rekers was the "professional" witness brought in to testify against gay adoption. He says he "has treated gay patients to try to change their sexual orientation, some of such patients being minors brought in by parents." He said he "would not allow openly homosexual people to spend time with [children] unsupervised" and that "a homosexual household is an inferior family structure." But the judge wrote that:

It was apparent from both Dr. Rekers' testimony and attitude on the stand that he was there primarily to promote his own personal ideology. If the furtherance of such ideology meant providing the court with only partial information or selectively analyzing study results that was acceptable to Dr. Rekers.

The judge also said Rekers "was either unable or unwilling to directly answer questions" and sdaid his "willingness to prioritize his personal beliefs over his function as an expert provider of fact rendered his testimony extremely suspect and of little, if any, assistance to the court in resolving the difficult issues..." Even after this fiasco the Republican Attorney General was still willing to hire Rekers to be an "expert" on why gay people shouldn't be allowed near children.

Along with another thoroughly discredited and dishonest fundamentalist nutter, Paul Cameron, Rekers created a fake "academic" journal (available on-line only) called the Empirical Joural of Same-Sex Sexual Behavior. And he wrote a piece for a right-wing group entitled: An Empirically Supported Rational Basis for Prohibiting Adoption, Foster Parenting and Contested Child Custody by Any Person in a Household that Includes a Homosexually-Behaving Member. Wow! He seems to be saying that in custody cases all gay people should be excluded automatically. But he is saying more since he would deny custody to a straight person if that person lives in household with a "homosexually-behaving member." So, if a couple divorces and the custody rights to the youngest child are disputed, and if that household includes a gay sibling, then Rekers would automatically grant custody to the parent who doesn't allow the gay child in the house. This man is a nasty piece of work.

What Rekers is saying is that parents who want custody of one child must throw out of the house any other child who is gay. He is literally encouraging making gay adolescents homeless. I quote the introduction to his article:

There is a strong rational basis for laws or regulations prohibiting adoption or foster parenting of a child by any person engaged in sexual behavior with another individual of the same sex and to any person living in a household in which there resides an adult or adolescent household member who engages in sexual behavior with another individual of the same sex.

If Rekers' recommendation were made law it would give all parents of gay children an awful choice in any custody battle. His regulations would require them to expell their gay child or lose custody rights to all their other children. He would put a real Sophie's-choice scenario into effect.

I should note that teens thrown out of their home for being gay are far more likely to end up in street prostitution. No doubt Rekers would see that as a win-win situation for himself.

Rekers is not the proper object of pity as he is an adult who chooses to believe fundamentalist garbage. His problems are self-inflicted. He has testified that the believes the Bible is the inerrant, inspired word of some deity. That is his problem alone. The self-hatred he suffers from, and which he then has tried to inflict on others, is the direct result of beliefs Rekers has chosen for himself. Rekers has been a long-time professional bigot who goes out of his way to try to make the lives of gay people miserable. That he himself was secretly gay explains the extremity of his bigotry.

Rekers has given several conflicting stories as to how he met the young male prostitute. In one scenario he claims he never knew the young man sold sexual services until after he hired him to carry luggage for him. In another he claimed he was merely "ministering" to prostitutes the way that his "hero Jesus Christ" had done. He was gone between the two stories even though they don't jive with each other. The claim that he was "ministering" to a prostitute would at least explain why he went to a website for male prostitutes to hire a luggage handler. But if he went to the site to hire the man, he can't claim he found out he was a prostitute at a later date.

But his ministering to prostitutes doesn't seem to correspond with what the New Testament describes Jesus as doing. As I previously noted Jesus didn't minister while paying the prostitute's hourly rate. But even more damning is the fact that the young man has spilled the beans.

According to the male prostitute Rekers required him to "provide body rubs once a day in the nude." I suggest you will find that means both Rekers and the young man were in the nude. Did Jesus have nude body rubs with the prostitutes he ministered to?

But, of course, it didn't end there. Rekers wanted more and preferred a technique referred to as the "long stroke" where the young man was asked to caress "across his penis, thigh, and his anus over the butt cheeks." The young man said: "Rekers liked to be rubbed down there." No doubt he did. The young man was reffered to as Lucien in the original story. That is not his real name but one the newspaper assigned to him to protect his identity. However, Lucien's real name was easily found but I see not reason to reveal it. The Miami New Times says:

Lucien decided to speak out after a heart-to-heart with a friend, Michael, who alerted him to the grim realities of his client's anti-gay activities. Lucien, who had originally declined to speak about the trip, now says he can do little good by protecting his erstwhile, fundamentalist client.

The paper promises to reveal documents that Rekers prepared for Lucien to sign to deny that anything sexual happened on the trip. No doubt they will drip-fed the information. Rekers, however, does have a chance, if he can present a reasonable explaination as to how he met this young man. So far he has refused to do so. Lucien says he was contacted through the Rentboy web site. All Rekers will say is that he interviewed several young men and won't say where he found them. My guess is that he can't say. And, if he used the website then smoking guns may exist in the form of emails Rekers sent to Lucien via the Rentboy website.

Curious George is a nasty piece of work but he is being hoisted by his own petard. And all I can do is enjoy the spectacle.

This raises the issue that many have noticed: antigay prejudices continually arise in individuals who are themselves later found to engage in same-sex activity. This matter was actually studied and confirmed to be true. The American Psychological Association published a study done at the University of Georgia. Men were asked to reveal their feelings toward gay people and then dived into two groups: those who were highly prejudiced against homosexual and those who were not. A press release from the APA describes the study and the results:

Each participant was exposed to sexually explicit erotic stimuli consisting of heterosexual, male homosexual and lesbian videotapes (but not necessarily in that order). Their degree of sexual arousal was measured by penile plethysmography, which precisely measures and records male tumescence.

Men in both groups were aroused by about the same degree by the video depicting heterosexual sexual behavior and by the video showing two women engaged in sexual behavior. The only significant difference in degree of arousal between the two groups occurred when they viewed the video depicting male homosexual sex: 'The homophobic men showed a significant increase in penile circumference to the male homosexual video, but the control [nonhomophobic] men did not.'

Broken down further, the measurements showed that while 66% of the nonhomophobic group showed no significant tumescence while watching the male homosexual video, only 20% of the homophobic men showed little or no evidence of arousal. Similarly, while 24% of the nonhomophobic men showed definite tumescence while watching the homosexual video, 54% of the homophobic men did.

When asked to give their own subjective assessment of the degree to which they were aroused by watching each of the three videos, men in both groups gave answers that tracked fairly closely with the results of the objective physiological measurement, with one exception: the homophobic men significantly underestimated their degree of arousal by the male homosexual video.

The researchers do say the antigay men may have been anxious and that caused the arousal. But given the consistency of antigay closet cases like Rekers I'm not so sure that the most obvious explanation is the correct one. George Rekers is just another example of that theory. And while he may be in denial about his trip at the moment, the evidence is accumulating at such a pace that he will no longer have any place to hide. But, no doubt, he will eventually "repent" and claim to be cured of the attractions he now claims not to have had, in spite of paying a young man to give him the "long stroke."

One fascinating thing about the Rekers case is that we may have just witnessed the birth of a new euphemism. Previously individuals who wished to describe activities that sexual aroused others would use a euphemism like "whatever floats your boat." Perhaps, thank to Rev. Rekers, we can add to that list, "whatever lifts your luggage."

This is getting so routine as to be comedic.

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Conservatves come to defense of gays so he can bash them.

A conservative writer at Breitbart's Big Journalism site, Bruce Carroll, has come to the defense of gays, sort of, in order to bash them along with liberals for hypocrisy. Carroll blogs about three men who went to San Francisco in order to assault gay men. The three cousins were Shafiq Hashemi, Sayed Bassam and Mohammad Habibzada.

The trio of budding bigots took a BB gun in to the city and picked a man they assumed was gay. They shot him in the face and were proud enough of their assault that they video taped the incident. Police were called and found the men a short time after the incident and confiscated the tape. As far as I know the police, when they arrest individuals, do not ask them their religion. And the news media reported on the incident based on information given out by the police.

But Big Journalism is livid because the the media, gays and liberals report neither "the identity group, nor the motives...." By identity group Carrol means Muslim. There is a decent chance these bigots were Muslim, based on the name. But I can't find anything to confirm that to be the case. It is an assumption. It may be a good assumption, but until we have confirmation, it is only an assumption. Journalists shouldn't make assumptions in news stories. To do so does bias the report according to the journalist's personal opinions. Normally conservatives would condemn journalists if they did make assumptions not in evidence.

Carrol, of course, is not concerned about gays. He just wants to bash journalists, liberals and gays in general. He went looking to see if gay media sites reported that the men were Muslim, because he assumes they are—and they may well be, I assume they are, but don't have proof. Most of Carrol's attack on various gay sites is entirely based on their refusal to brand the assailants as Muslims. This is a "head-in-the-sand approach in the reporting of this Muslim-on-gay violence in America's homo mecca" says Carroll. He specifically condemns various web sites for this alleged approach.

The sites in question don't have journalists stationed in San Francisco who could possible ferret out the religion of the assailants, in light of the police not identifying suspects by their faiths. What these sites apparently did was report on the story, based on the news stories on the wire from San Francisco. Is it hypocrisy? Is that head-in-the-sand, or is that actually good reporting based on only the facts in evidence and not on personal assumptions?

Carroll claims:

Folks who aren’t in tune with the American gay community need to understand something fundamental. The gay liberal activists and thought leaders that make policy and advocacy decisions have long ignored the existential threat to gays and lesbians by Islamic extremism. Liberal “gay rights” groups such as the Human Rights Campaign, the Gill Foundation, and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force are far more concerned about attacking American Christians on a daily basis than facing the real threat to gays around the world.

Carroll mentions the barbaric penalties imposed on gays by Muslim nations. All that is true. All that has been widely reported in the very sites and media outlets that Carroll is targeting in his tirade. But Carroll, in typical hysterical conservative mode, pretends that gays are "too concerned about court-forced marriage, educational indoctrination of kids and Federal funding to worry about such trivial matters as systematic killing of gays by Islamic regimes. Or the looming threat to American gays and lesbians on our shores." Wow! And you thought only the Greens got hysterical!

Carroll seems pretty silly to me. There is no "court-forced marriage" as far as I know. Allowing gays to marry is not forcing marriage. What a bizarre definition of force! And all the gay media has routinely reported on the killing of gays by Islamic regimes, including the very sites that Carroll bashes.

As someone who has condemned religious extremism, be it Islamic or Christian, I have to say that Carroll is going overboard. Muslims are not a "looming threat to American gays and lesbians on our shores." Yes, some individual Muslims in America will commit crimes of hate against gay people. But they are a small percentage of the population. There are more fundamentalists Christians in America who think gays need to be put to death, than there are Muslims in America holding that view. Yes, there are more fundamentalist Muslims in the world, who take that position, than there are Christians who take that position. But in America the odds are reversed.

And it is fundamentalist Christians who have the Republican Party by the balls, not Islamic fundamentalists. On a world-wide basis, Islamic fundamentalism is the bigger threat. Within the United States it is Christian fundamentalism that is a threat. This blog has reported on Christian fundamentalist clerics who have publicly called for executing gays under Biblical law. And the Bible does say that gay men should be killed, not that Carroll would admit it does.

If there is evidence, besides their names, that these three men were Muslims engaged in a religious attack on gay people, then it should be reported. Carroll unfortunately doesn't offer any.

What about the conservative head-in-the-sand approach to the extremism of their fundamentalist Christian allies and their antigay agenda? Fundamentalist Muslims and Christians both stand guilty of bigotry. Carroll blasts the purported hypocrisy of gays, liberals and the media in not reporting antigay animus among Muslims, but what about the conservative media ignoring antigay animus among Christians? Carroll's accusations are hollow. The groups he condemns have reported on verified Islamic attacks on gays. They didn't report that the three assailants were Muslims in this case, because so far no one has offered any real evidence that they are. But certainly commentators on the various sites have made the same assumptions that Carroll made.

I actually make the same assumption, but I wouldn't report it as fact without actually knowing it is a fact. Carroll doesn't know it is a fact, he just assumes it is, and no doubt hopes it is.

I did notice that Carroll left off one gay media site that I found in my search of stories on the case. On March 5th the Edge reported on the case and said that various conservative sites said the "three attackers are Muslim." Edge then discusses Islamic views toward gay people including calls for death. That was five days before Carroll wrote his piece. That article reported what it knew, that some people think it was a religiously-motivated attack, but it didn't offer it as if it were proven. Carroll's whole attack on gays, journalism and liberals relies on no one mentioning that the attackers might be Muslim so he has to ignore gay sites that did mention that very thing.

I have to say, as someone unhappy with both modern liberals and modern conservatives, that conservatives are the most hypocritical bunch in this debate. Conservatives like Carroll don't routinely report the wide-spread hatred against gay people within Christian fundamentalist circles. They ignore it. The groups Carroll attacks do report on that and they also report on Islamic assaults on the rights of gay people. Conservatives only discuss Islamic assaults on gays in order to bash Muslims, not because they actually care about the victims of those assaults. In Carroll's case he reports on Islamic gay bashing specifically so he can verbally bash gay people himself. His motivation is hardly pure, or honest, in my opinion.

By the way, to bolster his case, Carroll has a video of an antigay remark by a Muslim scholar, telling a black Muslim group in the US that gays ought to be killed. That video appeared at the Edge five days prior to Carroll's reporting it. Carroll never mentions that Christian fundamentalist have said precisely the same thing. But don't hold your breath waiting for Carroll to mention it.

Photo: I sincerely doubt that the holder of the sign is Muslim. I assume he is Christian and conservative, what does Carroll have to say?