Minister Resigns In The Midst of Controversy

Anti-gay activist, Christian minister George Rekers caught in gay escort scandal resigns from NARTH

By Michael Sheridan
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

A Baptist minister who campaigned against gay rights, only to be snared in a scandal after taking a trip through Europe with a gay hooker, has resigned from a group dedicated to helping those "who struggle with unwanted homosexuality."

George Rekers announced his resignation with a statement posted to the National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality's Web site.

"I am immediately resigning my membership in NARTH to allow myself the time necessary to fight the false media reports that have been made against me," the statement said. "I will fight these false reports because I have not engaged in any homosexual behavior whatsoever. I am not gay and never have been."

NARTH, a group which suggests on its Web site that homosexuality is directly associated with pedophilia and can offer a cure for homosexuals, has also removed the minister's writings from its site.

Rekers was spotted leaving Miami International Airport on April 13 with a 20-year-old he allegedly met on a gay escort Web site, the Miami New Times reported.

Contacted by the newspaper, Rekers claimed he was ignorant of his traveling companion's profession when he hired him for a 10-day European vacation.

"I had surgery," Rekers told the newspaper, "and I can't lift luggage. That's why I hired him."

Rekers has slammed the Miami New Times' reporting as "slanderous," and full of "misleading innuendo."

Last week, the newspaper featured an interview with Rekers' escort, "Lucien," in which he claimed the minister liked daily nude body rubs.

The Family Research Council, which Rekers helped co-found in 1983, has also distanced itself from the beleaguered minister.

"FRC has had no contact with Dr. Rekers or knowledge of his activities in over a decade," the organization stated on its Web site.