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Via Pam's House Blend.
Some further thoughts on this, tying together a couple of strands over the past few days. First, here's the comment I left at PHB:
"I love that Dr. Rekers says "I am not gay and never have been." It's almost believable...Yup, almost believable."
We're perhaps a little too ready to scoff at those such as Larry Craig, Ted Haggard, and George Rekers who, when caught in these sorts of scandals, start off by saying "I'm not gay." Frankly, I'm inclined to agree with them: if we take it that "gay" is an identity as much as an indication of same-sex attraction (and I don't see how we can do otherwise, if we stop to think about it for a moment), then they're not "gay." They don't identify with us. Whether they should or not is up for grabs: they haven't been part of our culture (and "gay," like so many other designations, is largely a cultural definition, at least in its foundation) and they don't want to be part of our culture. (Whether we want them here or not is moot -- I know a fair number of gay men who I wish weren't, and many of them display the same kind of internalized homophobia we see in those like Rekers. It's just that they haven't devoted their lives to trashing us in any public, organized way -- they do it on a personal level while somehow functioning as part of our community.)
Does Rekers deserve our sympathy and understanding? Sure -- I think anyone does when they've been that damaged by the world. Does he deserve our forgiveness? No -- not yet, and maybe never. To do that, he'd have to do a complete turn-around, which means he'd have to ask himself some hard questions, and I don't think he has it in him to do that. From what I've seen, I don't think he's man enough: given his reactions to being found out, I take it that he knows he's been a hypocrite, but instead of facing up to it, he's trying to dodge it.
At least he's not blaming "Julien."
That also ties in to this post at The Bilerico Project by Rev. Jonathan Edwards:
So the question is: what do you do with people who are betraying their own kind? History has some rather painful answers to that question, none of which are off the table in my book. However, today I was watching Stephen Colbert's lampoon of Rekers and every time his picture popped onto the screen, all I could think about was the scared, wounded and scarred little 14-year-old boy trapped inside of him and how terrified he must be. And how it must feel to look back over a life - he doesn't have that much time left, being in ill-health - not only wasted, but spent actively hurting the very people who might have loved you. And I felt compassion.
Compassion, yes. Maybe it's just me, but I think that anyone who has been that hurt by the world they live in deserves at least that. (Yes, I also see the frightened, wounded fourteen-year-old.) But, as I said in the response at PHB, forgiveness is a little harder.
(I also left a comment at that post that expands on this a bit.)
I'm left with something I've thought for a long time: those of us who manage to survive adolescence and actually grow into being who we are are damned tough. And pretty damned independent. Rekers, Haggard, et al. don't seem to be that tough or that strong, and so -- for me at least -- deserve our sympathy. (I don't know what it is about me, but when I see someone who's not as strong as I am, my first impulse is to help them. I admire those who are stronger -- but I'm not afraid of them. I'm obviously a misfit.) And probably our empathy. But while I can, to a certain extent, identify with them -- yes, I was fourteen and liked boys, once upon a time -- I don't want to be them. I'm very happy being me.
(Be sure to check out the coverage of this scandal at Joe.My.God. He's been on top of it from the beginning.)
Update: One thing that I'm very pleased to see happening in this case is the calls for support for Jo-Vanni Roman, the boy in question, from Andy Towle, Dan Savage, and Joe Jervis. Jervis is actually doing something, and I'm very happy that he has the contacts to do that. And Savage is right -- where are HRC and the other "advocacy" groups in this? Note the loud -- very loud -- silence. Is it because we're dealing with another male hooker? As Savage points out, Mike Jones got a good dose of being ignored by the gay organizations after he outed Ted Haggard. We seem to see yet another instance here of the on-the-ground activists acting where our "national leadership" is just too damned afraid. Let's talk again about who gets thrown under the bus by who.
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