A second gay escort has stepped forward
to claim ex-gay leader George Rekers paid him for gay sex.
Former stripper, escort and adult actor
Carl Sheperd (Chaz) alleges Rekers paid him $150 for “vanilla sex”
at the Hyatt Regency Hotel at Chicago's O'Hare airport in 1992.
Sheperd made his claim Friday in a lengthy post titled I am the
Original Rekers Rent Boy!!!! at his blog, chazonator.com.
Sheperd told Gawker.com that in
responding to his escort ad, Rekers said: “I'm looking to spend an
hour with a smooth young man for an intimate massage. Nude. I'm
kinda vanilla – I just want light touching, not sex.”
The story of 61-year-old Rekers hiring
a male prostitute off the pageviews of gay website Rentboy.com has
exploded since the Miami New Times first reported the news.
The paper's first story included a
photograph of Rekers returning from a 10-day European vacation
accompanied by a 20-year-old male escort named Lucien by the paper,
but whose real name is Jo-Vanni Roman.
Rekers is a prominent ex-gay leader and
social conservative. He is a Baptist minister who sits on the board of
the National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality
(NARTH), a group that believes gay men and lesbians can – and
should – alter their sexuality. He is also a founder of the
socially conservative Family Research Council headed by Tony Perkins,
an opponent of gay rights. And he's also the author of numerous
books on sexuality, including Growing Up Straight: What Families
Should Know About Homosexuality and Your Child's Sexual
Identity.
In an interview with the Times
published Thursday, Roman said he provided Rekers with daily body
rubs in the nude while the pair vacationed, adding that Rekers liked
having his anus rubbed by the younger man.
“It's
a situation where he's going against homosexuality when he is a
homosexual,” Roman said.
Rekers has denied that he's gay. In an
email to the Times, Rekers said he has been advised to retain
“the services of a defamation attorney” because “I am not gay
and never have been.”
He originally told the paper that he
hired the escort to “lift his luggage” during the trip that
included stops in London and Madrid. He's also denounced the Times
piece in a blog post, saying its authors “cleverly gave false
impressions of inappropriate behavior.”
In a Facebook posting, Rekers added
that he hired his travel companion to privately minister to him.
In his blog posting, Sheperd called
Rekers a “monster.”
“I don't care what the world says,”
Sheperd wrote. “They can call me a liar. They can call me a
faggot. The can even call me a whore. What you can't call me is a
hypocrite.”
“If you want to come after someone
who knows that George Rekers is a closet case, bisexual man who hates
himself and everyone else like him, then you can take my word for
it,” he added.
The story has prompted gay advocates to
ask for Rekers' resignation from the ex-gay group NARTH.
“Given the sordid and tawdry facts,
he should immediate step down from NARTH's board and apologize to the
LGBT community for his extreme hypocrisy and self-loathing,” said
Wayne Besen, executive director of Truth
Wins Out, a non-profit group that advocates against ex-gay
ministries.
“As of today, his entire body of work
on LGBT issues in rendered meaningless,” he added.