Catching a well-known homophobe in hot gay rentboy action is the dream of every budding young journalist. But short of following Rick Warren around with a camera all the time, how do you do it?
Last week, Miami New Times reporters Brandon Thorp and Penn Bullock (that's them; Bullock is on the right) broke the story of B-list anti-gay activist George Rekers' European sex-cation with a male escort, "Lucien," publishing excerpts from emails between Rekers and his "travel assistant"/erotic masseur, and a photograph of the two at the airport. Because everyone loves to be smug about bigoted hypocrites, news of Rekers' big gay vacation spread quickly, eventually culminating in a segment on AC 360° on Friday night, where Anderson Cooper interviewed the rentboy-real name Jo-Vanni Roman-himself.
But how did Thorp and Bullock get the emails? And how did they know to be at the airport to take a photo? Penn and Bullock have been reticent on that point. The journalists-who are a couple-got profiled in South Florida Gay News and... still wouldn't give anything up:
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.
Come on, guys! How am I supposed to find my own secretly-gay homophobe if no one will tell me?
Bullock and Penn, by the way, say that more "salacious details" and hot Rekers/Lucien action is coming down the pipeline (according to the article, there was supposed to be a post on the New Times site today, but if it's there I can't find it).
