In recent years, some conservative state legislators have proposed laws to allow the discrimination of gay people on the basis of restoring a free practice of religious beliefs. Such laws are of course morally reprehensible and antithetical to a federal constitution that mandates equality for all citizens. And yet it is also a truism of American life that those shouting loudest about the perils of a gay lifestyle are usually desperately covering up their own shameful behaviors.
And here it is, freshly updated for 2015: The Conservative Hall of Shame. Entry into the distinguished membership of the Conservative Hall of Shame requires the nominee to have a conservative political orientation, to have a prominent public life, the nominee's public prominence must be build in part on a proud record of statements and pronouncements against equal civil rights for people who are gay, and the nominee has demonstrated a desire to keep private their own personal enjoyment of participating in gay sex acts. We are accepting nominees all the time so if you feel you know someone who qualifies for the Hall of Shame, please send us your nominations.
The Conservative Hall of Shame
Bob Allen R; Fl
Bob Allen served as a republican member of the Florida state House of Representatives from 2000 – 2007. Soon after taking office in 2001, Allen was one of 21 Florida legislators to sign Gov. Jeb Bush's friend-of-the-court brief supporting the state's ban on gays adopting children. Also in 2001, he co-sponsored an unsuccessful bill that would have enhanced penalties for "offenses involving unnatural and lascivious acts" such as indecent exposure.
In 2007, Rep. Allen approached a black man in a public park restroom, and offered to perform oral sex on the man and give him $20. The man turned out to be an undercover police officer, and he promptly arrested Allen. In his defense, Allen said that he feared large black men, and was worried that the officer was going to rob him. He was found guilty and sentenced to probation and a fine. He later resigned from the Florida House of Representatives.
Roy Ashburn – R: Calif
Roy Ashburn was a republican member of the California senate between 2002 and 2010, serving the 18th district. As senator, Ashburn voted against every gay rights measure that came before the State Senate while he was in office – from opposing the establishment of Harvey Milk Day to legalizing same-sex marriage. The senator earned a perfect zero rating from Equality California “for voting aghainst every gay measure that came before him while in office.” (and was also perfectly unsuccessful as every measure subsequently passed). In March of 2010, Ashburn was arrested on suspicion of drunk driving while operating a state-owned vehicle. The Senator, with an unidentified male passenger, was pulled over in Sacramento shortly after leaving Faces, a Sacramento gay nightclub. Ashburn's blood alcohol content was measured at 0.14%. In response to accusations arising following the arrest, Ashburn admitted publicly in an interview on KERN radio that he is gay. He explained his voting record by saying that he was representing the wishes and beliefs of his constituents. but declined to respond when asked during the interview whether he personally agreed with votes he made on gay rights issues. He left public office in 2010 when his term expired.
Robert Bauman – R; Md
Rober Bauman was elected as republican member of the US House of Representatives in 1973. In Congress, Bauman established a reputation as a staunch conservative, often criticizing the state of morality in the United States. He was a founding member of several conservative activist groups, including the Young Americans for Freedom, and the American Conservative Union, where he served as national chairman. He was a vociferous opponent of gay rights and a member of the Jesse Helms wing of the GOP. Bauman lost his bid for re-election in 1980, after he was arrested and charged with soliciting sex from a 16-yr old male prostitute. He claimed alcoholism as a defense, and his legal charges were dropped after he successfully completed rehab (for alcoholism, not homosexuality). He later wrote an autobiography, entitled: “The Gentleman from Maryland: The Conscience of a Gay Conservative”.
Lisa Biron -
Lisa Biron was an attorney working with the Alliance Defending Freedom, a coalition of Christian attorneys dedicated to “transforming the legal system and advocating for religious liberty, the sanctity of life, and marriage and family”. Ms. Biron was arrested by the FBI and charged with violations of federal child pornography laws. The federal charges against her: transportation of a minor with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity, possession of child pornography, and five counts of sexual exploitation of children. It was later revealed that the minor was Ms. Biron's own 14-year old daughter, who the pornographer had filmed having sex with two different adult men. Ms Biron apparently also filmed herself having sex with her minor daughter. The arrest by the FBI occurred in the middle of a court hearing on state charges against Ms. Biron for possession of child pornography. In Jan. 2013, Ms. Biron was found guilty in US District court on the eight federal charges of child pornography. The jury deliberated for less than one hour. She is currently serving a 40 year sentence in federal prison..
Eric Bodenweiser – R., Del
Bodenweiser was a republican candidate for state senate in Delaware in 2012, when he was indicted on 113 counts of sexual abuse of a minor, including 39 counts of unlawful sexual intercourse. He had suspended his senate campaign the previous week, and filed papers to take his name off the ballot less than three weeks before election day. Bodenweiser had been allied with local Tea Party groups, and was supported by republican all-star Christine O'Donnell. Bodenweiser had run as a strong family-values candidate. On the campaign trail, he said: “In order to turn this nation around, we are going to have to get that Bible back in our schools....And we are going to have to start honoring marriage and families”. In a letter he published in the Coastal Point newspaper, Mr. Bodenweiser described himself as “an active member of the Sussex County Bible Church, and I'm a dedicated husband, father and grandfather...I volunteer as a mentor in a middle school, and I've mentored for Big Brothers/Big Sisters as well.”
Roy Cohn -
Roy Cohn was a conservative lawyer, who came to fame as chief counsel to the Joseph McCarthy-led Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. Cohn was well-known for his aggressive questioning of suspected Communists, and his close allegiance to the intimidating inquisitor J. Edgar Hoover. With his side-kick Joe McCarthy, Cohn targeted many members of government officials and prominent private citizens not only for suspected communist leanings, but also for the questionable criminality and the guilty pleasure of homosexual sex. As a prominent attorney in New York City, Cohn's client list included Donald Trump, John Gotti, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York, and the New York Yankees. In the 1960s, he became a member of the John Birch Society, and served as an ad hoc adviser to Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan.
In 1986, the Appellate Division of the New York State Supreme Court disbarred Cohn for unethical and unprofessional conduct, including misappropriation of clients' funds, lying on a bar application, and pressuring a client to amend his will. This action was taken after Cohn entered the hospital room of a dying and comatose Lewis Rosenstiel, a multi-millionaire and one-time lover of Cohn, forced a pen to Rosenstiel's unconscious hand and lifted it to his will in an attempt to make Cohn himself and his own grand-daughter beneficiaries to the Rosenstiel fortune. This “signature” was ruled invalid in court, and Cohn was cited and later found guilty. Cohn lost his law license during the last month of his life. At that time, National Review senior editor Jeffrey Hart referred to him as "an ice-cold sleaze."
Mr. Cohn’s was himself homosexual, and kept his sexual life closeted in the McCarthy-era Washington (gee, I wonder if he worried that powerful people might prey on his “weakness”?), and during his years in New York City. Diagnosed with AIDS in 1984; Cohn died of AIDS-related complications in 1986.
Larry Craig – R; Idaho
Larry Craig was a member of the US House of Representatives for the 1st District of Idaho from 1981 to 1991, after which he continued to serve Idaho in the US Senate for 18 years until 2009. As a representative, Craig was accused by other un-named congressmen of using cocaine and having sex with underage male congressional pages. Rep. Craig denied the allegations. As a member of the House Ethics Committee, Craig advocated for severe punishment of fellow gay congressman Barney Frank, when Frank's live-in boyfriend was discovered to be involved in a prostitution ring. As a senator, Larry Craig had tough words for Pres. Clinton about the Monica Lewinsky scandal: “The American people already know that Bill Clinton is a bad boy - a naughty boy. I'm going to speak out for the citizens of my state, who in the majority think that Bill Clinton is probably even a nasty, bad, naughty boy." Craig was a co-sponsor of the 2008 Federal Marriage Amendment, barring extension of civil rights to same-sex unions. He voted against the Hate Crimes Act of 2007, which extended hate-crime protections to cover sexual orientation. .
Sen. Craig was famously arrested in 2007 for soliciting a sex act with an undercover police agent in the men's restroom of the Minneapolis/St. Paul airport, to which charges he pled guilty. He later attempted to retract his guilty plea in court and failed. Despite the guilty verdict, and Sen. Craig’s own pledge to resign, he only left the Senate when his term expired in 2009.
Greg Davis – R., Major, Southhaven, Tenn.
Greg Davis is the republican mayor of Southhaven, Miss, a suburb of Memphis, TN, and the third largest city in Miss. Davis ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 2008, on a strong family-values platform. In November of 2011, Mississippi auditors asked Mayor Davis to pay back $170,000 in personal expenses Davis accrued using the city credit card. A FOIA request by a local newspaper to examine the charges Davis billed to the city credit card revealed expensive dinners at a local steak house, thousands of dollars at a local liquor store, and $67 spent at Priape, a Toronto business that calls itself “Canada's premier gay life-style store and sex shop”. When questioned by the local paper, Davis then admitted he is gay.
In an interview with The Commercial Appeal newspaper of Memphis, Davis was quoted as saying: "At this point in my life and in my career, while I have tried to maintain separation between my personal and public life, it is obvious that this can no longer remain the case.....While I have performed my job as mayor, in my opinion, as a very conservative, progressive individual -- and still continue to be a very conservative individual -- I think that it is important that I discuss the struggles I have had over the last few years when I came to the realization that I am gay." (I never knew one could be very conservative AND progressive.) Asked about the $170,000 in personal expenses he billed to city tax-payers, Davis said he wouldn't discuss specifics on the advice of his attorney.
Joey DiFatta – R; Lou
Joey DiFatta was a republican member of the St. Bernard’s Parish council, and served on the Louisiana GOP state Executive Committee. He is married and has two children, and his Plans For Louisiana include “Defend our conservative values from attacks by extreme liberal groups”. In 2007, while running in the 1st district Senate campaign, Councilman DiFatta admitted has been stopped twice since 1996 for suspicion of engaging in lewd behavior in public restrooms in Jefferson Parish. DiFatta said he had done nothing wrong and that he had never been arrested. Police in Jefferson Parish reported they had twice detained Councilman DiFatta, once for a peeping-tom incident in a restroom, and once for a toe-tapping incident involving an under-cover officer in a mall restroom, but no arrests resulted. In Oct. of that year, hours before the story of his run-ins with the law was to hit the front pages of the Louisiana Time-Picayune, DiFatta called the paper to announce he was suspending his senate campaign, because he had been having chest pains and "might have had a minor heart attack in the past few days".
Terry Dolan -
Terry Dolan was a prominent conservative political operative. He was co-founder and one-time chairman of the National Conservative Political Action Committee (the group that holds the well-known yearly convention of political conservatives in which Rush Limbaugh was famously videotaped bouncing up and down, and whose literature in 1980 made the following claim: “Our nation's moral fiber is being weakened by the growing homosexual movement and the fanatical E.R.A. pushers (many of whom publicly brag they are lesbians).”). H also served as director of Conservatives Against Liberal Legislation (CALL), was a member of the advisory board to Rev. Sun Myung Moon's CAUSA International, and in 1972 had a paid position on the Richard Nixon re-election campaign.
Though a prominent and outspoken critic of gay rights, Dolan was identified as a closeted gay man who frequented gay night spots in Washington D.C., as documented by Randy Shilts in “And The Band Played On”, and by Frank Rich in the NY Times. Mr. Dolan died of complications of AIDS in 1986.
Mark Foley – R; Fl
Mark Foley was a republican member of the US House of Representatives, serving Florida’s 14th district, from 1994 to 2006. In the House, Foley was one of the foremost opponents of child pornography. He introduced a bill, coined the "Child Modeling Exploitation Prevention Act of 2002" to outlaw web sites featuring sexually suggestive images of preteen children. Foley had served as chairman of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children, in which position he wrote legislation to change federal sex offender laws, which was signed it into law by Pres. GW Bush as part of the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006.
In 2006, ABC News reported that under-age male pages working in congress were willing to make public the inappropriate advances they had received from Rep Foley going back ten years. Some of these inappropriate contacts were in the form of sexually suggestive and graphic Instant Messages, and were later released on the internet. Federal authorities said the explicit messages could result in Foley's prosecution, under some of the same laws he helped to enact. Foley denied any physical contact with minors, but resigned his position in the House of Representatives, and disappeared into rehab center for alcohol-related problems. His lawyer later released a statement that “Mark Foley wants you to know he is a gay man.”
James Dale Guckert -
James Dale Guckert is a conservative columnist and former White House reporter for Talon News. While working for Talon News between 2002 and 2005, Mr Guckert, working under the pseudonym Jeff Gannon, routinely obtained White House security passes to attend presidential briefings and press conferences, although he applied for the passes under a fake name, had no previous journalistic experience, did not qualify for a congressional press pass, and had no security screening. The fact that a person with a fake ID and no security clearance was regularly allowed in the same room as the president of the US during a time of heightened security measures escaped attention, until it was noticed by other members of the press that the president would seek out Guckert during press conferences for his friendly soft-ball questions. It was then learned that Guckert was already known in certain circles for his work before Talon News with a number of homosexual escort services and the multitude of gay-themed nude photos of him available on the internet. Guckert resigned from Talon News in 2005, and worked for a time as a reporter for the Washington Blade, where he confirmed that he is gay. He has since written a book about his adventures as a White House correspondent, and is desperately working to remove the many nude photographs of him that can still be found on the internet.
Ted Haggard –
Ted Haggard was founder, former pastor, and head of the evangelical New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Colo.; he was also president of the National Association of Evangelicals from 2003 to 2006. He was very influential in evangelical and conservative political circles, participating in weekly conference calls with then-president George W. Bush's White House, and was a welcomed visitor to the Bush White House. Pastor Haggard spoke and met regularly with the likes of James Dobson, Pat Roberson, and Jerry Falwell.
In 2006, a male escort and masseur Mike Jones claimed that Haggard had for a period of three years paid him to have sex with Pastor Haggard, and on occasion, was given money by Pastor Haggard to purchase methamphetamine to liven up their sexual play. Jones said he felt to need to come forward with these charges when he learned Pastor Haggard's political support for Colorado Amendment 43, that sought to ban same-sex marriage in the state of Colorado: “I had to expose the hypocrisy. He is in the position of influence of millions of followers, and he's preaching against gay marriage. But behind everybody's back he's doing what he's preached against...It made me angry that here’s someone preaching against gay marriage and going behind the scenes having gay sex.” After initially denying Mr. Jones claims, eventually Pastor Haggard eventually admitted both that he used methamphetamine and carried on a long relationship with the male sex worker. He resigned his position as head of the National Association of Evangelicals, and was forced out of the New Life Church he had founded, quitting the $138,000 yearly salary the church paid him. He moved to Phoenix, AZ., and entered a church-oriented “restoration process” after which he declared himself “completely heterosexual”. He took classes towards a degree in counseling. In 2009, he and his wife appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show, Good Morning America, and The Larry King Live Show to offer public confessions and apologies for his conduct. Since then, the Ted Haggard has incorporated a new church in Colorado Springs, CO., admitted that he considers himself to be bisexual, and admitted to carrying on a three-year, non-consensual sexual relation with a male parishioner while he was leader of the New Life Church (the New Life Church announced it reached a financial settlement with the former parishioner involving an abusive relationship with Pastor Haggard).
Philip D. Hinkle – R; Ind.
Rep. Philip Hinkle is a republican state representative serving Indiana's 92nd district since 2000 Previously, he worked as a tax assessor and a member of the city-county Council in Wayne Township IN., and has worked as a real estate agent. Rep. Hinkle is married and has two children. He says he does not support same-sex marriage for the state of Indiana, and co-sponsored a constitutional amendment (to the IN constitution) to ban gay marriage.
In Aug. of 2011, CNN reported that Rep. Hinkle exchanged sexually suggestive emails with an 18 yr old male he met on CraigsList M4M section. Kameryn Gibson told the Indianapolis Star newspaper that he placed an ad in CraigList M4M section, and within an hour received a reply from Rep. Hinkle's publicly listed personal email address phinkle46@comcast.net: “Cannot be a long-time sugar daddy, but can for tonight. Would you be interested in keeping me company for a while tonight....” The email exchange includes “How about $80 for services rendered, and if real satisfied, a healthy tip”, and “Final for the record, for a real good time you get another 50-60 bucks. That sounds good?” The emails carried the tagline “Sent from Phil's iPad”. Mr Gibson says Rep Hinkle picked him up and drove him to the Indianapolis JW Marriot hotel, but when Rep. Hinkle revealed that he was a state law-maker and showed him an ID card, Mr Gibson became frightened and tried to leave the hotel room. Mr Gibson says that Rep Hinkle then became angry, grabbed Gibson's rear, and disrobed himself. Later Rep. Hinkle gave Gibson an iPad, a Blackberry phone, and $100 in cash to stay quiet. Since the story first broke, Rep. Hinkle admitted paying Gibson $80 to have a good time, but says he is not gay, and doesn't know why he paid the young man. Rep. Hinkle says he did nothing illegal with or to the prostitute, and says that he himself is the victim of a crime, though he never filed a police report. Rep. Hinkle fulfilled his term as state representative, and did not seek re-election in 2012.
John Hinson – R; Miss.
A member of the US House of Representatives from 1979-1981. During his re-election campaign in 1980, Hinson admitted that in 1976, he had been arrested for committing an obscene act, exposing himself to an undercover policeman, at the Iwo Jima Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery. Hinson, who was married, was again arrested in 1981, and was charged with attempted oral sodomy on an African-American male employee of the Library of Congress in a restroom of the House of Representatives. Hinson resigned in 1981, and spent the remainder of his life as an openly gay activist in Washington, D.C., where he was a founding member of the Fairfax Lesbian and Gay Citizens Association in Fairfax County, and worked to overturn the ban on gay service in the military. He died of AIDS in 1995. For his public work on behalf of equal rights for all citizens regardless of sexual orientation, Rep Hinson is also awarded a “Hall of Shame to Fame” award.
J. Edgar Hoover
J. Edgar Hoover was the inaugural head of the FBI, a position he held from 1924 until the day he died in 1972. While he is generally credited with building the FBI into the large and powerful crime fighting organization we know today, he has been accused of using illegal methods to collect masses of personal information about private citizens, regardless of their involvement in criminal activities, and then use that information to intimidate and coerce them. Hoover amassed significant power for himself by collecting large amounts of compromising and potentially damaging information about public and powerful persons, especially politicians. Under Hoover's direction, the FBI spied on and collected information of hundreds of thousands of Americans suspected of holding radical ideologies or involvement in subversive causes. In the 1950, as the Supreme Court handed down decisions limiting the powers of the Justice Department to persecute persons for their political views, Hoover started a covert “dirty tricks” program called “COINTELPRO”. The techniques of COINTELPRO included burglaries, under-cover infiltration, illegal wire-taps, planting forged documents, inciting and fomenting violence, and possibly even arranged murders. COINTELPRO was first used to disrupt the operations of the American Communist Party, and later the Black Panther Movement, Martin Luther King Jr.'s Southern Christian Leadership Conference, prominent civil rights leaders such as King and T.R.M. Howard, and liberal student political organizations The operations of COINTELPRO continued until they were leaked to the press in 1971. After a Senate investigation (the Church Hearing, named for chairman Frank Church – D, Idaho), COINTELPRO and its methods were declared illegal and unconstitutional.
Since the 1940's, rumors about Hoover's gay sex life have circulated. Hard and firm information is difficult to come by. Hoover was known to have hunted down and threatened anyone who made insinuations about his own personal life. Hoover had a long and close friendship with his protege and associate director of the FBI, Clyde Tolson: they worked and ate together, they vacationed together (in southern Calif., no less!), Tolson inherited Hoover's estate and moved into his home after Hoover's death, and is today buried beside Hoover in the Congressional Cemetery. There is a famous rumor about Hoover appearing at homosexual orgies in the 1950s wearing a black fluffy dress with flounces and lace, black stockings, heels, and a black curly wig. Others claim that these sorts of rumors were the work of Soviet disinformation campaigns to discredit Hoover and Hoover's fight against communists.
Despite all that is not known about Hoover's sex life, he gains admittance to the Hall of Shame for his tireless efforts to learn and expose the sexual behaviors of so many others while zealously protecting his own private life.
Pastor Eddie Long -
Eddie Long is the senior pastor at the 25,000 member New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in DeKalb Co., Georgia, where he has been a pastor since 1987. In 2004, Pastor Long organized a march through Atlanta to the Martin Luther King grave-site to protest same-sex marriage and in support of a constitutional amendment to limit marriage rights to heterosexual couples. In his church, he has ministered “homosexual cure” programs for gays and lesbians. Pastor Long has been quoted as saying “if you are gay, you deserve death”, and in 2007 was named by the Southern Poverty Law Center as “one of the most virulently homophobic black leaders in the religiously based anti-gay movement.”
In 2010, four separate lawsuits named Pastor Long as engaging in sex acts with male members of New Birth's youth missionary, in one case with a 16-year old. In addition to the sex, the lawsuits allege that Long put the men on the church payroll, bought them cars and other expensive gifts, and took them separately on trips to exotic foreign destinations. The suits were quietly settled out of court in 2011, for a rumored pay-out of $2.5 million. Pastor Long has denied the allegations, and has refused to speak publicly about the lawsuits or their settlement. He continues to serve as the Senior Pastor at the New Birth Missionary Baptist Church.
Kenneth Mehlman -
Kenneth Mehlman is the former chairman of the Republican National Committee from 2005 to 2007, field director for the 2000 election campaign of George W. Bush, and manager for the 2004 re-election campaign of GW. Bush. He served as director of the Bush White House Office of Political Affairs. As head of the RNC, Mehlman served side-by-side with Karl Rove to execute the Republican Party's “1000 Year Reich” plan to create a permanent one-party conservative majority throughout the American political scene. As head of the RNC and the Bush election campaigns, Mehleman espoused and promoted every conservative anti-gay crusade of the 'aughties: no equal rights for gays, no gay marriage, no gay adoptions, no gays in the military or Boy Scouts, no gays in the Republican Party, etc.
In Aug., 2010, after years of publicly denying rumors that he was gay, Ken Mehlman admitted openly in an article in The Atlantic Magazine that he is gay. According to the NY Times, Mehlman is “the most prominent Republican official to come out”. Of his previous strong public positions against civil rights for gay Americans, Mehlman said he could not go against party consensus while in his leadership role in the Republican party The reception to Mehlman's coming out in the gay community has been mixed: he has been chided as a “quisling homophobic scumbag” while others applaud his honesty and praise him for the strong voice he could bring to national gay political causes. And now free of the restrictions placed on his personal life and political beliefs by his association with the Republican Party, Mehlman has lent his energies and expertise to a variety of gay civil rights causes: in 2010, he worked with the Obama White House to lobby GOP congressmen to repeal the “Don't Ask, Don't Tell” law; and in 2011, spoke personally with many members of the New York State Assembly to lobby for passage of the same-sex marriage law, and is credited with playing a significant role in the successful passage of that law in NY. As such, Kenneth Mehlman is awarded membership in the Hall of Shame, and is the first recipient of the “Hall of Shame to Fame Lifetime Achievement Award”
Cardinal Keith O'Brien -
Cardinal Keith O'Brien is the former head of the Roman Catholic Church of Scotland. In 2012, O'Brien was named “Bigot of the Year” by the gay rights advocacy group Stonewall after publicly calling gay marriage “a grotesque subversion of a universally accepted human right”, and that same-sex partnerships were “harmful to the physical, mental, and spiritual well-being of those involved”. He has also described homosexuality as a “moral degradation”.
In February 2013, Cardinal O'Brien resigned his position as the highest ranking catholic in the U.K., admitting in his resignation letter that his “sexual conduct has fallen below the standards expected of me”. The resignation was precipitated by formal written accusations made to the Vatican by four men, three of them serving priests, accusing O'Brien of inappropriate sexual conduct. Shortly thereafter, the Scottish Herald newspaper reported that O'Brien had carried on a decades-long sexual relationship with a subordinate priest, who is also one of O'Brien's accusers. According to the Scottish Herald, O'Brien now admits this relationship. Officials of the Scottish Catholic Church say that the complainants against O'Brien were motivated by O'Brien's outspoken attacks against homosexuality.
George Alan Rekers -
George Alan Rekers is a conservative anti-gay activist, and was a founding member (along with James Dodson) of the Family Research Council. Dr. Rekers was a board member and one-time scientific advisor to the National Organization for Research and Therapy for Homosexuality, an organization that promotes the “therapeutic” treatment of homosexuals, and served at various times in an advisory capacity to the Bush White House, Congress, and the Dept of Health and Human Services. Dr. Rekers earned a Ph.D in psychology from UCLA and is professor emeritus of Neuropsychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Univ. S. Carolina School of Medicine. His area of expertise seems to be gender identity and sexual thinking of adolescent boys. Dr. Rekers treated Kirk Murphy as a young boy, and claims that he cured Mr. Murphy of his homosexuality. Murphy's family says the therapy was a source of lifelong struggle and pain for Mr. Murphy, and ultimately led him to commit suicide as a young adult. Mr Rekers has testified in court as an expert witness that homosexuality is sinful and destructive, and that gay adults should not be allowed to adopt children in cases involving the states' banning of gay adoption in Arkansas and Florida.
In 2010, Dr. Rekers was photographed by a reporter from the Miami Herald returning from a trip to Europe accompanied by a handsome, athletically-built young man named Jo-Vanni Roman, a gay male sex worker who offers his services through a web-site called “Rent-Boy.com”. Dr. Rekers acknowledged that he hired Mr Roman as his travel assistant for a ten-day trip to Europe. Mr. Roman reported that his paid duties included daily nude massages with occasional genital fondling, and that he himself thought that Dr. Rekers was a homosexual. Dr Rekers admitted hiring Mr Roman to accompany him on his European travels, but denied that they had sex or that he himself was homosexual.
Ed Shrock – R; Vir.
Elected to the US House of Representative in 2000, from where he co-sponsored the Federal Marriage Amendment, voted Yea for the Marriage Protection Act, and aggressively opposed allowing gay people in the military. Schrock announced that he would not seek re-election in 2004 after being caught on tape soliciting sex from a gay prostitute. Schrock was included in the 2009 documentary Outrage, which profiles closeted gay public officials
Rev. John J. Smid -
Rev. Smid is the former executive director of Love In Action International, the country's oldest and largest “ex-gay ministry” - a ministry that works to set gay people straight. In a 2005 interview, Rev.Smid described his ministry as “a Christian discipleship program”. Love In Action International runs a boot camp-style residential rehab designed to “cure” homosexuality. Based on Christian orthodoxy, the camp enforces behavioral guidelines: participants are forbidden contact with the outside world, the rulebook expressly forbids “reading/watching/listening to secular media of any kind”, time spent in the bathroom is monitored to prevent masturbation, and mock funerals are held for participants who express a desire to leave the program, during which their death due to “leaving God” is mourned.
Curiously, Rev. Smid admits to having a number of homosexual relationships even before he joined Love In Action International in 1986. Smid was first married when he was nineteen, and two children and six years later, he began a series of gay relationships. While his first marriage ended, he continued to be involved in gay relationships, including a three-year relationship with another man. During this time he joined Love In Action International. He later married a second time (to a woman), a relationship he continues today.
Rev. Smid resigned from Love In Action International in 2008. Writing in his blog in Oct, 2011, Smid acknowledge that, based on his own experience and contrary to the claims of the ministry he led for years, that gay people can not be “cured” of homosexuality. He wrote: “I've never met a man who experienced a change from homosexuality to heterosexuality....I would consider myself homosexual, yet in a marriage with a woman....this doesn't change the fact that I am who I am and she is who she is.” In his blog, Smid offers his apology: “If you have been wounded by me or harmed through the hands of my leadership; please come to me and allow an opportunity for me to personally apologize with the hope that we can both be released from the bondage of unforgiveness,” he wrote.
Grant Storms -
The Rev. Grant Storms is a self-described “christian patriot”, and former pastor of his own christian church who gained nation-wide attention 2003 for leading public demonstrations through New Orleans' French Quarter against the annual gay festival held there, admonishing participants for their sinful behaviors, and calling the city of New Orleans “a prostitute” for using the event to generate tourism dollars.
In 2012, the 55 year old, who today earns his living cutting grass, was convicted on one count of obscenity for exposing himself while masturbating in a public park near a children's playground. According to the eyewitness testimony, Storms had been “looking at the playground area that contained children playing, with his zipper down” at the time of his arrest. On later interrogation, Storms admitted to the police he masturbated in the public park three separate times in the week prior to his arrest, and that he found masturbating in the park to be “I guess a thrill”. Storms was sentenced to three years' probation, and was ordered to undergo psychological evaluation..
James Elton (Jim) West – R; Wash
Jim West served in the Washington State House of Representatives from 1983-1986, and in the state senate from 1986-2003. He served as the 41st Mayor of Spokane, Wash., from 2003-2005. He was a life-long republican who listed his occupations as “Republican”. During his years in the legislature, West developed a record as an opponent of rights for homosexuals. He supported several "anti-gay" bills, including one that would have banned gays and lesbians from working in schools and day care centers. He sought laws that would fire gay state employees, and to deny City Hall benefits to domestic partners of gay city employees. He unsuccessfully proposed a law banning all sexual activity among persons under the age of 18.
In 2004, Mayor West was identified by the Spokane Review newspaper as “cobra82”, a regular poster of sex ads on the web-site Gay.com, after Mayor West answered a fictitious ad placed by a newspaper investigator. West later admitted to private relationships through the gay web-site. In 2005, the Spokane Review alleged that West offered unpaid internships in the Mayor’s office to young gay men. That same year, allegations surfaced that West had sexually molested young boys while he was troop leader for the local Boy Scouts 25 years previously. West’s fellow troop leader at that time, David Hahn, committed suicide after the allegations of long-buried sexual abuse became public. The FBI conducted an investigation, and no charges were brought. Spokane voters recalled West in a special election, and West left public life in 2005.