Growing Up Straight: What Families Should Know About Homosexuality by George A. Rekers (Moody Press, 1982, 158 pp.)
by Dr. Ralph Blair
This Fundamentalist psychologist’s discusses homosexuality under three subheadings: “The Truth” about it, “The Trap” of it, and “The Triumph” over it. But his “Truth” is a fallacy, his “Trap” is his own failure, and his “Triumph” is utter folly. There is so much fuzzy thinking and so many false promises in this book that evangelical readers, both homosexuals and their families, will be caught in the end in a hopeless cul-de-sac of Reker’s own making. The all too frequent tragedy of disillusionment and cynicism will be, again, the most inevitable result. Non-Christian gay people are unlikely to read a Moody Press book and in this case that is fortunate. But further damage will be done to the cause of Christ among non-Christians because gay leaders will make it their business to read what the enemy is saying. And they’ll see the book for the fallaciousness that it is on homosexuality but they’ll not see it as the fallaciousness it is on Jesus Christ. So they’ll likely take it as one more example of what D. L. Moody, himself, lamented was the Christian’s “evil spirit of extreme intolerance” toward different people, others, who, as Moody observed, are “driven away from Christianity by the abuse of Christians” and who, in their being “railed at by them,” see “the dark side of Christianity”.
Rekers’ fundamental error is his unwarranted jump from his limited study of so-called deviant sex-role behaviors and sex-typed mannerisms in children (e.g., ‘this little boy is acting like a sissy!) to his linking these to adult homosexuality. He has not done longitudinal research that would carry study on children into study on these individuals in adulthood and thus he cannot even describe a connection between cross-gender behaviors in childhood and homosexual orientation in adulthood, much less establish a connection or prescribe preventive measures to parents. Furthermore, such studies of connections would not prove cause and effect. If he succeeded in punishing out unwanted “sissy” gestures in childhood he would have succeeded, within his own frame of thinking, in stamping out a homosexual future in adulthood. But without longitudinal data he does not know if his treated “feminoids” grow up straight. However, since according to Rekers, “There is no such thing as a homosexual child”, and since he admits that homosexuals differ from each other “in their childhood histories”, that they “come from such diverse family and personal backgrounds”, and that while some homosexual men are effeminate, “others are extremely masculine in appearance and behavior”, what in the world is the basis for his thesis and for his promise to parents that he can “make sure every child has the opportunity to grow up straight”?
Rekers’ falsehoods include his saying that, “homosexuals are more promiscuous than heterosexuals”, that homosexuals offer “no judgment about what is right”, and that motherhood roles are “hastily abandoned”. Strange, then, that he presents himself as an “expert witness” to testify against child custody rights that lesbian mothers go to court to win! He does not tell the truth about how the American Psychiatric Association (to which he does not belong) made its diagnostic change on homosexuality. He is vicious in warning that homosexuals have a devious “plan for our children”. He advocates ignorance to protect “our children”, saying that the new awareness of the once secret homosexuality is in itself a “threat for children growing up in our society today” and he decries the loss of that pattern of secrecy “in the past [that] worked for the welfare of children” whom he misunderstands “were largely unaware of homosexuality”. We might wonder, then, about the iatrogenic effect of Rekers’ inordinate focus on a child’s cross-gender behavior. What does the child make of such attention? And is the child then set up for homosexual panic later on when the child becomes old enough to figure out the earlier fuss. No problem. Rekers can then “cure” the heterosexual of his “homosexuality”. He lies about gay rights legislation, saying that its goal is sex between adults and child prostitutes. He fails to see that gay people and “concerned parents” are not necessarily two different groups. Paying no attention to the failures that the leaders in behavior therapy now admit (e.g., Lazarus, Davison, AABT), he foolishly promises elimination of homosexuality by behavior therapy. But he is slippery and says that, “what constitutes success” here is compatible with life-long homosexual “urges”. He judges even a six percent “change rate” is “optimistic” and footnotes for “cure” only the meaningless report by reporter Tom Minnery (Cf. REVIEW, Vol. 5, No. 3) on the flimsy claims by the Pattisons (Cf. REVIEW, Vol. 5, No. 2 and Vol. 6, No. 4) and the discredited book by duMas (Cf. REVIEW, Vol 4, No. 4) Much of what Rekers says is too silly to take time to rebut (e.g., “homosexuals do not always get along with one another”, brothers should not sleep or take baths together and fathers should “spend time playing ball and teaching their sons basic athletic skills” so as to prevent homosexuality). The “Triumph” he advises over adult homosexuality: “Self-punish” with a stiff “Stop that!” every time a male homosexual is tempted by the sight of a sexy male.
As I write this review, the November Moody Monthly arrives with a back cover ad for “Rekers’ book. It promises: “You can protect your child from homosexuality.” More ironically than I am free to say, inside the magazine I find no fewer than nine pages containing favorable material on evangelical Christians who are secretly either homosexual themselves or have children who are homosexual. And, of course, it must be assumed that there are also some whose dealing with homosexuality I’m unaware. Sadly, not all of them have been able to deal responsibly with it. Some default to promiscuous homosexual acts because of pressure imposed by those like Rekers and his cohorts.
[On April 13, 2010, Rekers was photographed with a young gay male traveling companion on their return to Miami International Airport after a 10-day European vacation. The companion, Lucien, is a 20-year-old whose services and physical attributes were listed at homoerotic Rentboy.com. Rekers says it was on a friend’s recommendation that he hired Lucien to handle his bags and that he’d had no idea he was a prostitute. But Lucien says there was no way the two could have met except through Rentboy.com. He says Rekers contracted him for daily massages throughout the trip.
Rekers says: “I have not engaged in any homosexual behavior whatsoever.” He resigned from the reparative therapy network, NARTH, and hired a lawyer. In an email interview with Christianity Today, posted on the CT website on May 13, Rekers writes: “I have committed myself to ongoing meetings with an experienced pastor and counselor from my church, so I can more fully understand my weakness and prevent this kind of unwise decision-making in the future.”]