An even more specific concern to Floridians, Bill McCollum, Florida Attorney General who is running for Governor, paid Mr. Rekers $120,000 according to a report from Equality Florida.  This is twice what McCollum’s office previously reported.  

Just yesterday, May 7, 2010, towleroad.com reported that a second “Rentboy” has come forward claiming to have been hired by Rekers.  In the report, the second man who goes by “Chaz” states that when he was in his 20’s he was hired by George Rekers.  Chaz, now 41 years old, states that Rekers wanted a “full body massage” (sound familiar?) and “light sexual contact”.  The report comes from Chaz’s blog where he states Rekers paid him $150 for what he says “there wasn’t a single part of his body that my hands had not touched”.  With that being said, this very well could be someone just wanting to get into the limelight riding on the coattails of someone else’s story.

As reported on MSNBC, just two weeks before Rekers was caught at the Miami Airport with his “rent boy”, he sent out a letter on March 31, 2010 to every school superintendant in America - 14,800 of them.  In the letter he advised these school districts that “In dealing with adolescents experiencing same-sex attraction, it is essential to understand there is no scientific evidence that an individual is born “gay” or “transgender” … it is also essential to understand that these conditions can respond well to therapy”.  This report by MSNBC should horrify every American and especially the entire LGBT community.  Our current Attorney General who is sworn to uphold the laws of our state has taken it upon himself to also create religious-based laws using hypocritical “experts” for testimony. 

In McCollum’s press release as reported in the Orlando Sentinel, he states that Rekers was hired “after an exhaustive search for potential expert witnesses who were willing to testify.”  What this really means is that McCollum’s office led an exhaustive search for someone who had expert credentials, ie.  a doctor, who would actually testify under oath against gay adoptions, as well as proclaiming that gays could be cured.  I would agree; it really must have been an exhaustive search to find someone with such warped views and be considered a doctor and be willing to testify under oath to such nonsense.  Even more, they had to go all the way to South Carolina to find him.  Is that a surprise?  Also in McCollum’s statement, he says that “Dr. Rekers had exceptional credentials and he had provided testimony in similar cases on two separate occasions” – one of those similar cases was in Arkansas where he testified against gays being foster parents as reported in this MSNBC story.  This statement from McCollum just shows the extent that his office went to find someone that shared McCollum’s own right-wing, bigoted, ultraconservative and out-of-the-norm (curing gays) views. 

Yes, I think it would have taken an exhaustive search to find someone that was a founding member of the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH), an organization that attempts to turn gay people straight, as well as a member of the American College of Pediatricians, an official sounding organization on the surface, from which that letter to the school districts was sent.  As MSNBC states, it seems they hope they will be mistaken for the real group, The American Academy of Pediatrics.  A search for someone so anti-gay they belong to organizations that try to turn gays straight.  A search to find someone that had “credentials” that would testify that gays who parent children are bad and should be outlawed.  Fortunately for us, this “exhaustive” search has backfired on them.

Yes, Bill McCollum and his office have shown that this incompetence and blatant bigotry should not continue on to the Governorship.   He’s shown that he is not worthy of this office and should resign as Attorney General of Florida.  As for George Rekers, he’ll go down ( pun intended) in history as a member of the elite club of proud members (again,  pun intended) like Ted Haggard, Senator Larry Craig, Congressman Mark Foley, and so many others who have fallen from grace with their hypocrisy.  As for the rent boy - “Lucian”, your fifteen minutes of fame will be fleeting.  Your nonchalant interview on CNN shows that you deserve no pity as many have suggested.  If you swim with sharks, be prepared, you might get bitten.