[Insert Name] is Completely Heterosexual


"The whole world is fueled by bullshit."
- Justin's Dad, on ShitMyDadSays

So, yet another gay-hating American wingnut is caught being gay. What a surprise.

George Rekers - co-founder of the Family Research Council and "neuropsychiatrist" - found a 20 year old rent boy known as Lucian on Rentboy.com, and paid him to join him on holiday. And got photographed at the airport.

Rekers admits to all that, but claims
(1) Lucian was only there to carry his baggage, though Rekkers was carrying his own baggage.
(2) Lucian didn't become a rent boy till they were on holiday, though Rekers couldn't have found him if he weren't already, and
(3) on the holiday where Lucian became the rentboy he already was, Rekers was teaching him how not to have sex with men:

“If you talk with my travel assistant ... you will find I spent a great deal of time sharing scientific information on the desirability of abandoning homosexual intercourse, and I shared the Gospel of Jesus Christ with him in great detail.”


Rekers joins a small and select group of horny homosexual hypocrites, with Lonnie Latham and Paul Barnes. Larry Craig, Mark Foley and Terry Dolan. Ed Schrock, Jim West and Glenn Murphy. Lonnie Frisbee, Billy James Hargis and J Edgar Hoover. John Paulk, Ted Haggard and Roy Cohn.

Okay, not such a small group.

A lot of people ask how a gay man can stir up such hatred towards other gay men - but it's not such a difficult question when you make the unspoken assumptions explicit: How can a principled gay man stir up such hatred for money?

Ambitious hypocrites are always for sale, and there's such a supply of them, they sell cheap.

No, I think the real question is: How can these people's followers swallow the self-justifying bullshit they spout when they get caught? Are these followers stupid? Grossly ignorant? Brainwashed and insane? Yes, but they really swallow it because...they want to.

We generally need to believe our opinions are correct, our morals justified, our actions productive...and our milieu somehow both the default state of humanity and somehow a little above the common clay. It doesn't take much to shore up these beliefs when challenged - sometimes just the knowledge that a rebuttal of some kind has been made.

When I was a theology student the question came up about why we trainee priests had to know all this difficult theological stuff, when we'd never have to use it for the job. The answer we got was: we needed to know it so the faithful flock could have confidence that any doubts they might have could be answered...and therefore they didn't need to have them.

It also came out in parentheses that almost no one who studies theology comes out believing in god - but I think we'd all discovered that for ourselves after six months of bible study.

As a socialist for the last decade I've heard an enormous amount of utter drivel from other socialists. Ranging from how obvious defeats are victories in disguise, to how working class men and women are equally oppressed by the state so sexism isn't an issue, to how the infinitely elastic terms of the Dialectic explain everything from quantum mechanics to voting patterns.

All of which is a little odd, because most of my comrades don't understand or care about these issues. They just want to know where to campaign and how to do it. Not that there's any reason why they should care about theory and theoretical debates, but with the number of monthly and quarterly publications, historical and theoretical pamphlets, republished polemics and notebooks from over a century ago...it's as if most of us don't want to know the answers, or indeed the questions, but we want to know there are questions which have been answered. And the proof is that someone in the branch has read those big thick books.

Don't get me wrong, I think Marx was right in the important ways, in his exposition of and criticism of capitalism and its ideology. Capitalism is neither inevitable nor eternal nor "human nature", any more than feudalism was. It's just that those who dismiss Marxism as a religion are not wrong in all ways.

I often think growing up is a lifelong process of finding out you've been wrong all along, and accepting it. That's why growing up is painful, why it tends to happen when your world falls apart, and why so few ever want do it, but somehow think they already have.

7 comments:

  1. In an effort to not, for a change, clog up your comments with an essay, i'm going to do this in bullet-point form.

    1 - Not all theology students abandon their faith. I knew a theology student once. He lost his 'vocation' to the priesthood, but remained a believer (though not a biblical literalist).
    2 - Marxism isn't a religion, but some Marxists treat is as though it is. This is because thinking is hard, but following is easy.
    3 - It would be wrong to discount hypocrisy and the money motive in the famously gay gay-haters, but it's also wrong to completely discount other factors. If you are trying very hard to convince yourself that you can pray your gay away, it's likely you will be very angry with the people who insist that it's impossible.
    4 - 'Travel assistant' is my new favourite euphemism. "Yeah, he was my travel assistant. He gave me rock-hard assistance all night long..." ;o)

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  2. “If you talk with my travel assistant ... you will find I spent a great deal of time sharing scientific information on the desirability of abandoning homosexual intercourse, and I shared the Gospel of Jesus Christ with him in great detail.”

    In other words, he was on his knees and moaning "Oh God". :-)

    we needed to know it so the faithful flock could have confidence that any doubts they might have could be answered...and therefore they didn't need to have them.

    Whenever I asked questions, religious leaders would tell me that I a) lacking in faith and b) couldn't understand the answer anyway. The message was clear: don't worry your pretty little head because we are the one religion with a correct interpretation of scripture.


    I often think growing up is a lifelong process of finding out you've been wrong all along, and accepting it.

    Growing up, people tell you about life and how you’re supposed to live it – even if the role they assign you has nothing to do with who you actually are or what you want. It’s hard to let go of preconceived notions, both our own and those imposed on us by others. I think maturity begins when you stop trying to be what you think you should be, what family, society, religion, government, etc, expects you to be, and start accepting and taking responsibility for who you truly are.

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  3. @Aethelread: Not all theology students abandon their faith.

    Indeed not - there are degrees and types of faith loss, from marginal to total degress, and subtle to wild wacky types.

    Some continue to believe in god himself, but ignore most of the bible. Others extract a moral message that may or may not be in the text, and believe in that. Many decide "god is the universe" or "god is everything good", and worship that.

    Marxism isn't a religion, but some Marxists treat is as though it is.

    That's exactly what I've tried to tell some Marxists. They couldn't see the difference. Presumably they were the religious ones.

    If you are trying very hard to convince yourself that you can pray your gay away, it's likely you will be very angry with the people who insist that it's impossible.

    That is also true. The profit motive among those with the prophet motif could never be the only factor, but I suspect it's the major one, among religious leaders. Other motives would be more common in the flock.




    @Household Goddess: religious leaders would tell me that I a) lacking in faith and b) couldn't understand the answer anyway.

    "You're lacking in faith." - Translation: "I can't answer your question, so I'll moralise about your asking it."

    "You wouldn't understand the answer" - Translation: "I never understood the answer I was supposed to give." or "I don't have an answer but you're only a woman so I don't need one."

    I think maturity begins when you stop trying to be what you think you should be [...] and start accepting and taking responsibility for who you truly are.

    Well, I've got no idea what I truely am. I know what I'm not, and I know what you used to pretend to be.

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  4. What is this world coming to when a closeted homophobe can't even rent a manwhore for sex without the intrusive public all up in his business--when really, it was just the manwhore who was paid to be up in his business!?!

    There's a trend in US political sex scandals.

    When it's a Democrat, it's usually a man who cheated on his wife with another woman he worked with.

    When it's a Republican, it's usually a gay sex scandal! Most likely involving male prostitutes and underage teens!

    Ha! People who live in glass whorehouses shouldn't throw stones!

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  5. People who live in glass whorehouses shouldn't throw stones!

    Haha! That's a very quotable quote!

    I have an image of an American gay bar. It's full of republican senators, religious whackjobs, fake 'conversion' therapists...and underage male prostitutes. Oh, and it's called "Club Denial".

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  6. Profit motive...prophet motif

    Ha! That's some damn fine wordplay. :o)

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  7. I backed out of this debate completely when I became Pagan. The thought of sharing the same God as this bunch of wankers is just too much to take.

    I wonder how the rent boy managed to deep throat that amount of hypocrisy and not puke?

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