ANTI-GAY ACTIVIST CAUGHT WITH RENT BOY

A leading figure in the ex-gay movement has been caught returning home after taking a rent boy on holiday.

According to the Miami New Times, George Alan Rekers, a co-founder of the Family Research Council, went on the ten day trip to Europe with a male escort who advertises his services on the rentboy.com website.

Rekers, who is a conservative Christian and has lobbied against LGBT rights, has claimed that the man was a “travel assistant”.

Rekers is also a board member of the National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH), and testified as an expert witness in favour of gay adoption bans in both Arkansas and Florida. He also published several anti-gay books.

Truth Wins Out, a group opposing the belief that homosexuality can be “cured”, called for Rekers to apologise to the LGBT community.

“This is a bombshell that completely discredits the ex-gay industry and proves that the movement is a fraud,” said Wayne Besen, executive director of Truth Wins Out.

“…his fingerprints are on almost every anti-gay effort to demean and dehumanise LGBT people. Lobby groups that work to deny equality to LGBT Americans ubiquitously cite his work. Rekers has caused a great deal of harm to gay and lesbian individuals,” Besen said.

Rekers has denied having sex on the holiday and said that he recently had surgery and needed an assistant on the trip. He claims to have learned that the man in question was a male escort only midway through their vacation.

In February, another NARTH co-founder and board member, Arthur Abba Goldberg, was found to be a con artist who had served prison time for fraud. He resigned from the organisation in shame.