McCollum says he wish he had never hired anti-gay leader, now Rentboy escort

Attorney General Bill McCollum said Monday that he "wouldn't do it again" and select George Rekers as the state's expert witness in its case defending the gay adoption ban.  A gay male prostitute told reporters Friday that Rekers hired him to carry his luggage on a trip to Europe, and to give him nude "massages."

"I will not do it again,'' McCollum said, but defended his agency's handling of the case, and steered the blame toward the Department of Children and Families, which he said hired him.

"I think our team’s done what it should do,'' he said. "We’ve been defending the constitution of the state and we’ve been representing the Department of Children and Families, who hired him and paid him and needed expert witnesses and he was available and credentialed.

"I wouldn’t do it again if I knew what I know today but I didn't know that then and neither did anybody else,'' he said.

McCollum spokeswoman Sandi Copes called to clarify: "They have paid him but we did select him, executed a contract that DCF approved," Copes said. "We selected him, they paid for him.''

Comments

[Chaz Stevens]

Bill;

Seriously. Are you even remotely close to making a point?

God, Gays, and Guns. The Holy Trinity of the GOP.

[Lee Dorsey]

Well Chaz,
I think what Bill is trying to say... is 1) It is someone else fault/ problem, 2) I don't really care, but wish it hadn't come to light, cuz who really cares about kids who need adoption anyway...
and...most importantly

3) VOTE FOR ME STILL... I'm not really that dumb.

so, if you believe it, go ahead and vote for him.

[Todd212]

So, this account from 2008 sounds pretty true:

http://www.orlandoweekly.com/news/story.asp?id=12830

“From the outset, the state was in a weird position,” says Rosenwald, the ACLU attorney. “It only got more complicated when they tried to find experts. They were looking for serious scientists. They were told no serious scientists would testify on their behalf.”

Indeed, Rekers and Schumm stand diametrically opposed to the position of the American Psychological Association, which in 2004 put out a statement in support of gay parenting.

It’s unclear who developed the state’s strategy. A spokeswoman for the attorney general’s office said its lawyers took their cues from DCF. DCF’s spokeswoman offered another perspective: “I’m going to have to say it came from the attorney general’s office in terms of legal strategy,” says Sarrah Troncoso. “I would have to defer to them.”

From a political perspective, that explanation makes sense. DCF’s leader is George Sheldon, a lifelong Democrat who has enjoyed a good relationship with the gay community since the 1980s, when he served in the Florida Legislature. Republican Attorney General Bill McCollum, on the other hand, is a conservative eyeing a U.S. Senate seat in 2010.

[RJ Sheehan]

Bottom-line is that no party/politician has ANY special claim to morality or family values, the blessing of the Almight or anything like that. Politicians are largely what they are--politicians. In fact, the louder they rant on moral issues, the more likely it is that they are subject to that very weakness and are overstating their case for purposes of cover.

That said, sexual indiscretions once were largely the province of Dems as insider-trading was for Repubs. I think that's why they were the more interesting party when I grew up. The GOP was into money indiscretions--boring. The Dems knew the true meaning of "party." I believe that the GOP got all over Hillary Clinton for alleged insider trading not because they abhor that kind of stuff, but because that was THEIR turf. I would think that the Dems ought to do the same with all these moralistic conservatives who are muscling in on sexual failings.

Oddly, the Dems have the moral high-ground here, not because they are any more holy than the Repubs, but because they never made themselves out to be the holier.