Rekers and his Rentboy

Given recent events, I'm going to start assuming that all homophobic self-described evangelical Christians and anti-queer politicians are self-loathing and closeted. To wit; yesterday the Miami New Times published an article asserting that Christian right leader, and homophobic hate-monger Dr. George Rekers was photographed on April 13 at the airport returning from a 10 day vacation to Europe with a hired rentboy codenamed "Lucien." The newspaper describes the arrival of Dr. Rekers and Lucien:

On April 13, the "rent boy" (whom we'll call 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 "old man with an atavistic mustache" is Dr. Rekers. He's best known, if you know him at all, as a Baptist minister and co-founder with James Dobson of the Family Research Council, a D.C.-based, supposedly Christian, and vociferously anti-gay lobbying group. Rekers has campaigned loudly against gay adoption, serving as a state witness in support of Florida's prohibition against same-sex parents adopting children. He's written books like Growing Up Straight: What Families Should Know About Homosexuality. Rekers in the past has been a research fellow at Harvard University and a professor of neuropsychiatry at the University of South Carolina. That said, Reker's primary current research published in the Empirical Journal of Same-Sex Sexual Behavior is absolute tripe. The "journal" is self-published on a Website for which Rekers registered the domain. The articles on the Website are largely by Paul Cameron, or Rekers himself. It is, in other words, a pay to publish vanity blog masquerading as scholarship. Any "scientist" who "publishes" in such a journal does so because their research is so crappy that reputable science journals, journals that rely on anonymous peer review to select legitimate research, will have nothing to do with them.

Now, to return to the story of the day: Rekers claims that "Lucien" was traveling as his baggage carrier; according to Rekers "I had surgery and I can't lift luggage. That's why I hired him." I note that the story and photos describes Rekers handling the luggage. I further note that the site Rekers used to hire Lucien Rentboy.com is clearly a site for same-sex male sexual companions. It's not the kind of site you "accidentally" Google.

Rekers has been positively devout in pursuing a series of anti-queer agendas. So I'm left wondering: how much self-loathing are we inculcating, to have ended up where we are?