South Florida Gay News introduces the world to Brandon K. Thorp and Penn Bullock, the men who exposed George Rekers. Bravo, boys!
Wilton Manors residents Brandon K. Thorp, 27, and Penn Bullock, 21, met on My Space three years ago but only in the last week has their relationship reached the cosmos.
Last week, Thorp, who usually writes the theater column for Miami New Times, joined with his partner, Bullock, to break the story that a young male hooker from Miami had gone on a ten day European vacation with Dr. George Rekers, a founder of the rabidly anti-gay Family Research Council, and a board member of NARTH, the notorious National Association for the Research and Treatment of Homosexuality.
Dr. Rekers is not just anyone. He is a nationally reputed leader of the ex-gay movement who has authored books and campaigned vigorously that homosexuality can be cured. Republican Attorney General and gubernatorial candidate Bill McCollum actually paid him almost $120,000.00 of taxpayer money to be a star witness for the State of Florida in the legal case seeking to defend state statutes banning gay adoption.
When the story by Thorp and Bullock went public on Thursday, it skyrocketed into the national news. Truth Wins Out Executive Director Wayne Besen issued a press release condemning the hypocrisy of Rekers. The Human Rights Campaign chimed in as well. Gay bloggers chipped in their two cents, and national news organizations reached out all seeking exclusive and unique angles. Neither Bullock nor Thorp nor the 20 year old escort, whose identity they tried to protect, was ready for it. The story took on a life of its own.
A gay blog site, Unzipped.net, was dissatisfied that the New Times feature refused to reveal the hooker’s true identity, identified by Thorp and Bullock only as ‘Lucien’ in their article. Using the Rentboy search engine, they used the physical characteristics described in their article to track down a photo of the young man, whose picture they then published, along with his Rentboy.com ad....
Thorp and Bullock went about the task of writing their story methodically. First, it was not Roman that tipped them off to the lead the young man was in Europe with Rekers. Instead, it was a friend of Roman’s, who was an ‘authorized user’ of his e-mail account. Apparently, while reviewing Roman’s contacts, he came upon the escort’s famous client, and contacted his friend, Bullock. His goal was to expose Rekers, a married man, for hiring a male escort.
Bullock and Thorp immediately recognized the significance of their quarry, and the potentially explosive nature of the story. They arranged to secretly be at the airport with a camera when Rekers arrived, and snapped the now famous photos of Rekers standing over his luggage, with Roman in the background.
Read the entire article here.
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