Tuesday, May 04, 2010

Tightass likes . . . tight ass?


Can we agree it's not a good idea to engage in a culture war when you're completely outgunned and your ranks are full of Benedict Arnolds?

Can we agree that "conservative" Christians engaged in this "war" with all the forethought and all the tactical aplomb of George W. Bush, circa 2003?

And finally, can we just agree the culture war is over, and the "moral majority" lost? Actually, it wasn't even a contest.


MAYBE WE could call it "Dobson's Last Stand," considering this story in Miami New Times about one of the men who co-founded the Family Research Council with him:
The pictures on the Rentboy.com profile show a shirtless young man with delicate features, guileless eyes, and sun-kissed, hairless skin. The profile touts his "smooth, sweet, tight ass" and "perfectly built 8 inch c*** (uncut)" and explains he is "sensual," "wild," and "up for anything" — as long you ask first. And as long as you pay.

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 man was George Alan Rekers, of North Miami — the callboy's client and, as it happens, one of America's most prominent anti-gay activists. Rekers, a Baptist minister who is a leading scholar for the Christian right, left the terminal with his gay escort, looking a bit discomfited when a picture of the two was snapped with a hot-pink digital camera.

Reached by New Times before a trip to Bermuda, Rekers said he learned Lucien was a prostitute only midway through their vacation. "I had surgery," Rekers said, "and I can't lift luggage. That's why I hired him." (Medical problems didn't stop him from pushing the tottering baggage cart through MIA.)

Yet Rekers wouldn't deny he met his slender, blond escort at Rentboy.com — which features homepage images of men in bondage and grainy videos of crotch-rubbing twinks — and Lucien confirmed it.

At the small western Miami townhome he shares with a roommate, a nervous Lucien expressed surprise when we told him that Rekers denied knowing about his line of work from the beginning. "He should've been able to tell you that," he said, fidgeting and fixing his eyes on his knees. "But that's up to him."

For decades, George Alan Rekers has been a general in the culture wars, though his work has often been behind the scenes. In 1983, he and James Dobson, America's best-known homophobe, formed the Family Research Council, a D.C.-based, rabidly Christian, and vehemently anti-gay lobbying group that has become a standard-bearer of the nation's extreme right wing. Its annual Values Summit is considered a litmus test for Republican presidential hopefuls, and Sean Hannity and Ann Coulter have spoken there. (The Family Research Council would not comment about Rekers's Euro-trip.)
THE FRC will be unable to hide from this one, so it just as well address the issue. Then again, what in the world could its officials say? "Holy crap! This may have just discredited us?"

As for Rekers' part, it seems there's no explaining this one away. His pathetic attempt to do just that was his best possible shot. Read on:
In his interview with New Times, Lucien didn't want to impugn his client, but he made it clear they met through Rentboy.com, which is the only website on which he advertises his services. Neither Google nor any other search engine picks up individual Rentboy.com profiles, any more than they pick up individual profiles on eHarmony or Match.com. You cannot just happen upon one.

To arrive at Lucien's site, Rekers must have accepted Rentboy.com's terms of use, thereby acknowledging he was not offended by graphic sexual material. He then would have been transported to a front page covered with images of naked, tumescent men busily sodomizing each other.
OH, MY! And then it gets really disturbing if you apply just a little imagination.

Not to mention Rekers' blog, TeenSexToday.com. Again, from New Times:
Indeed, much of Rekers's activism over the past three decades — beginning with his 1983 book, Shaping Your Child's Sexual Identity — has been devoted to improving children's lives by educating them, protecting them from their own budding sexualities, and keeping them safe from gay adoptions — as he did by testifying as an expert witness in favor of gay adoption bans in both Arkansas and Florida.

Well, it's a good thing Rekers isn't gay himself. Lucien tells us that Rekers frequently takes in foster children and that four years ago he adopted a 16-year-old boy. We found the boy, who is now Lucien's age, on Facebook. He declined to be interviewed.
IN THE ARENA of culture and morals -- in the quest to redeem a fallen culture and dysfunctional society -- it just doesn't work to look at this and say "Well, he's a son of a bitch, but he's OUR son of a bitch."

You can't preach the gospel and promote good morals with a gay "rent boy" by your side. Well, you can, but the cynics will laugh and everybody else will be scandalized. You can't win a "war" by giving your "enemies" ammunition.

Assuming, of course, that what Christians are called to is war. Which we aren't.

We're called to love our neighbor and proclaim the truth -- in love. This is not achieved by entrusting a pearl of great price to culture-war hypocrites who lust after "rent boys" as they troll the halls of power, flattering Caesar and living a lie.

1 comment:

Amy Welborn said...

Anyone who names a website, no matter what the content, "teensextoday" is not to be trusted, no matter what they say.