Category: scandal

Jo-vanni Roman aka “Lucien” photo via CNN

CNN’s Randi Kaye scored the first TV interview with the young Miami man still called “Lucien” by most news organizations that have covered the story. The interview aired Friday night on AC360.

It was a busy news week: a major natural disaster in Tennessee, a major man-made disaster in the Gulf, financial disarray on Wall Street and in Europe, and a hung parliament in Britain. With all that going on, Lucien was an unlikely interview subject for a long segment on a major cable news show.

He had nothing to do with any of the week’s big disasters and—unlike many cable-news subjects—he doesn’t appear to have sought out the spotlight, or even to enjoy its focus on him.

“Lucien” simply chose last month to accept an employment contract to accompany an older man on a European vacation in return for a fee.

[See clips at end of this post from CNN, and a comment on the story by MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow]

“Lucien” advertised his services at RentBoy.com, a highly not-safe-work site that allows gay male escorts, masseurs, and others to promote their services.

The man who hired Lucien to accompany him on a 10-day European vacation turned out to be one George Alan Rekers.

And that made Lucien’s story news.

George Alan Rekers is one of the most prominent behind-the-scenes anti-gay activists in the US.

He’s a co-founder of the adamantly anti-gay Family Research Council and is a board member of NARTH, an ‘ex-gay’ activist group that claims to be able to ‘cure’ homosexuality through Christian-Bible-based ‘therapy’—a term that has been called inaccurate by professional psychologists.

He’s has also been trotted out by countless other anti-gay activists as a “scholar” whose supposedly “scientific” studies are cited to support their homophobia.

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catholic, rachel maddow, npr

Source: New York Times, Associated Press, AP, Reuters, AFP, Der Spiegel, BBC
Victims of abuse by Catholic priests and nuns in Ireland and elsewhere expressed deep disappointment over an eagerly anticipated pastoral letter released Saturday by the Vatican after weeks of consultation with Irish bishops.

In the letter, which was to be read at all Catholic churches in the country, Pope Benedict XVI apologizes to victims of abuse and rebukes Ireland’s church leaders for “grave errors of judgment” in failing to observe the church’s secretive canon laws, Associated Press reports.

In the long-awaited, eight-page pastoral letter, the pope said to abuse victims,“You have suffered grievously and I am truly sorry. Your trust has been betrayed and your dignity has been violated.”

“Many of you found that, when you were courageous enough to speak of what happened to you, no one would listen,” the pope wrote.

He added, “I know some of you find it difficult even to enter the doors of a church after all that has occurred.”

But Benedict did not ask for resignations from Cardinal Sean Brady, the head of the Irish church, or any other member of the Irish hierarchy and did not not require that Roman Catholic leaders be disciplined for past mistakes as some victims were hoping, New York Times reports.

Nor did the pope indicate that the Irish abuse cases reveal deeper problems with church rules.

“My first response was deep disappointment in the letter,” said Maeve Lewis, executive director of victims group One in Four. “We feel the letter falls far short of addressing the concerns of the victims,” Lewis told Reuters.

Lewis said that the pope wasted “a glorious opportunity” to address “the core issue in the clerical sexual abuse scandal: the deliberate policy of the Catholic Church at the highest levels to protect sex offenders, thereby endangering children”.

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Joseph Rocha was photographed by AP photographer Hasan Jamali while on duty in Bahrain via NPR

Two years after an official Navy investigation first uncovered the brutal abuse of a gay sailor and pervasive sex crimes and hazing at a Persian Gulf training center, the non-commissioned officer who allegedly ordered and participated in the campaign of harassment will be forced from the service.

Senior Chief Michael Toussaint must retire in January, two years earlier than planned, a Navy official said.

He also received a letter of censure from the Secretary of the Navy, which is the harshest administrative action that can be taken against a sailor, the Virginian-Pilot reports.

Toussant’s retirement pay will be reviewed at a hearing, said Navy spokeswoman and Commander Elissa Smith.

Troussant has returned to the United States from deployment and is on leave, according to the paper.

Adm. Gary Roughead, the chief of naval operations, has also asked the Naval Criminal Investigative Service to look into the “command climate” in Bahrain at the time of Troussant’s command at the military working-dog training facility. It’s possible those findings could implicate higher-ranking sailors, according to the Virginian Pilot.

The delayed disciplinary action against Troussant comes after Congressman Joe Sestak (D-PA), a retired two-star admiral, raised questions about documented sexual abuse at the facility in Bahrain.

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Source: Oregonian, Willamette Week, Portland Mercury, Portland Business Journal

Beau Breedlove, onetime boyfriend of Portland Mayor Sam Adams, was paid to pose shirtless for the May issue of Unzipped magazine

“This has always been focused on Adams’s ethical transgressions against the city,” Wurster said, according to Portland Business Journal. “The AG coming back with no charges doesn’t mean things weren’t found that were wrong. It just means he’s confident he can’t successfully prosecute him.”

In a 17-page report, Kroger's staff said they couldn't find any independent evidence to confirm an account by Beau Breedlove that he kissed Adams twice romantically in 2005 when the younger man was underage, the Oregonian reports.

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Source: Sharon Herald, Allied News, Pittsburgh Post Gazette via Reading Eagle
Sharon, Penn. -- John Gechter, 22, who is known to many internet fans as gay porn star Vincent DeSalvo, has reached a settlement with the small Pennsylvania Christian college that kicked him out after his porn career was uncovered by a fellow student less than a month before Gechter would have graduated.

“[The college] offered me a deal that if I withdrew, they would let me transfer a few courses that I need to graduate,” Gechter explained to the Allied News of Grove City. “I’ll be able to transfer those credits to GCC and I will still graduate with a GCC degree.”

“I’m satisfied with the outcome but not happy,” Gechter told the Allied News.

Gechter was a senior at Grove City College (GCC), a private fundamentalist Christian college that is rated by US News as the third most conservative campus in the US.

GCC did not confirm any of Gechter’s claims, the Sharon Herald reports. It released a statement noting that Gechter has “voluntarily chosen to withdraw from Grove City College.”

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