McCollum's B.S. Answer To Rekers/Rent Boy

Bill McCollum attended the Tiger Bay Club meeting. McCollum gave an implausable answer to why he hired anti-gay social conservative George Rekers to testify against a gay adoption case.

"He was the only available witness that had the credentials, willing to testify, and willing to produce the evidence. What we needed to have done was to put the records in the evidence. He's not a scientist, like somebody who does experiments or issues his own opinions. He's simply a scholar. He was producing the written reports, and the records, and the studies that had been done, and introducing them into evidence."

Openly Gay St. Petersburg City Council Member Steve Kornell did not buy McCollum's answer. Kornell told WMNF that there are no scientific studies to back up McCollum's claim that gays should not adopt.

"There are none. I am a member of the National Association of Social Workers. I'm familiar with that type of research. There are no studies. They had to stretch. That's why he could only find Dr. Rekers. And that's why he paid him $120,000 of our money to prop up an argument that is clearly failing. That's clearly not true. That clearly is not right. And I want people to understand that it's not that you should be able to get a kid if you're gay. It's that me, for example, after twenty years of working in recreation and in the school system. After a master's degree in social work. All this time with working with kid's, would not be allowed to even apply to adopt a kid, because I'm gay, automatically."

Rekers was paid $120,000 by the state of Florida for testimony. Former DCF head Bob Butterworth said the DCF did not want to hire Rekers. Butterworth had good reason not to want to hire Rekers. Judge Lederman found Rekers' testimony lacked credibility.

Judge Cindy Lederman wrote, "The court cannot consider his testimony credible or worthy of forming the basis of public policy."

And then the story of Rekers with Rent Boy broke. We now know what the "long stroke" is.

Rekers allegedly named his favorite maneuver the "long stroke" -- a complicated caress "across his penis, thigh... and his anus over the butt cheeks," as the escort puts it. "Rekers liked to be rubbed down there," he says.

Is it Christian conservative if Rekers said, "Oh, Jesus" after the long stroke?