Baptist Minister Rents Trouble

George Rekers, a Baptist minister who along with James Dobson co-founded the powerful Christian lobbying group Family Research Council, was spotted arriving at Miami International Airport with a companion he hired from a gay escort Web site called RentBoy.com. Dr. Rekers said he hired the prostitute as a travel assistant for a trip to Europe after having had surgery. "I can't lift luggage. That's why I hired him," Rekers said. Photographs of the two emerging from the airport, though, show Rekers pushing both their suitcases on a luggage cart. Rekers said he realized the man was a prostitute half way through his ten day vacation. Rekers sits on the board of the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality, an organization dedicated to changing the sexuality of gays and lesbians, and has authored books that describe homosexuality as a curable condition. Dr. Rekers has testified in Florida and Arkansas as an expert witness in favor of bans on gay adoption. His companion was identified as a 20 year-old Puerto Rican man whose description on RentBoy.com says he is "sensual," "wild" and "up for anything." He then lists “vanilla, leather ... shaving [and] spanking” among his fetishes and stripping and go-go dancing among his talents. After reports of his trip with a male prostitute surfaced, all information about Dr. Rekers disappeared from the Family Research Council's Web site.