To the Editor:
“Scandal Stirs Legal Questions in Anti-Gay Cases” (news article, May 19) and “A Heaven-Sent Rent Boy,” by Frank Rich (column, May 16), suggest that my expert testimony in the California Proposition 8 trial on same-sex marriage was influenced by the writings of George Rekers, a psychologist and Baptist minister.
My expert report to the court — which was written entirely by me, includes a list of scholarly sources and is available for anyone to read — includes no mention of Mr. Rekers. And for good reason: I have never met Mr. Rekers or read any of his writings.
I recently learned that a separate, lawyer-generated document submitted to the court apparently does list an article by Mr. Rekers in connection with my testimony, but that document, on this point, is in error.
This matter is particularly important to me, since in my report to the court, as well as in my testimony on the stand, I clearly and emphatically rejected the anti-gay views that Mr. Rekers has apparently expressed.
David Blankenhorn
President
Institute for American Values
New York, May 19, 2010
See also his FamilyScholars.org post on this subject.
Categories: Marriage
Comments (3)
Great response…conscious and right to the point!
David,
You can’t deny that you have collaborated with Dr. George Rekers’ Family Research Council. My husband and I met you at FRC headquarters when you lectured on your book “The Future of Marriage”. While you were certainly the most GLBT friendly person in the room, the association with the the FRC is undeniable.
As a husband and a father, you know how precious your marriage is. I can attest that my marriage is the most valuable thing in my life, and it has been that way for twenty-seven years. You may “reject anti-gay views”, but your political work aids and abets the anti-gay/Christianist groups and it harms families like mine. Ideas have consequences.
Mr. Weintraub:
If you attended that lecture, then you will recall that, immediately after I finished speaaking, the FRC official who had introduced went to the podium to state very emphatically that FRC did NOT agree with the views that I had just put forward regarding gay and lesbian people.
I speak to people and to groups all the time who do not necessarily agree with me. It’s a conscious decision on my part, since I want people who don’t necessarily agree with me to hear my views.
You say that you were in that room that day. If you were, doesn’t that mean that you in fact “collaborated” with FRC? If you did not wish to “aid and abet” FRC by participating in one of their events, why didn’t you just stay away? Wouldn’t that have made your point more effectively? Don’t you think it’s true that, by virtue of your collaboration with FRC in swelling their attendance at such events, you are in fact facilitating and participating in the anti-gay movement in America? Further, you seem to know that Rekers is affiliated with FRC (something I didn’t know). Doesn’t your involvement with FRC mean that you in fact support Rekers, regardless of what you say now?