MIAMI – George Alan Rekers, the anti-gay minister and a darling of the Christian right, says he needed help lugging his luggage during a 10-day holiday in Europe.

The North Miami resident apparently was sufficiently healed from surgery that he could take a long-distance flight across the Atlantic to frolic in Europe, but still he sought out a strong, strapping fellow to carry all those bags for him.

So his wandering eyes that so diligently are on the lookout for homosexuals to cure – he is, after all, a top dog with the National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH), a group that tries to turn gays straight – happened to see RentBoy.com on the Internet.

Where better to find a travel companion? he apparently thought.

He logged into the online gay escort service, signed the waiver that he was going to see shocking sexual content and happily went down page after page of hot young men who sell their services to find just the right rent boy to accompany him on his trip.

Rekers told The Miami New Times that – shock of all shocks – that he didn’t discover until halfway through his European vacation that his travel companion was a male prostitute.

Oh, really?

A number of Internet sleuths have tracked down the escort, who goes by Geo, not “Lucien” as the paper had dubbed him.

Geo is Latino and 20 years old, the same age as Rekers’ adopted son. (Which begs another question: Why didn’t Rekers ask his adopted son to carry his bags for him in Europe? Wouldn’t most parents take their child on vacation with them?)

Geo’s profile on RentBoy.com advertises a no-holds-barred profile.

The first thing to leap out, of course, is that he is 5 foot 9 inches tall, weighs 130 pounds and has a 28-inch waist. The perfect size to fit inside one’s Pullman, rather than one able to lug a lot of luggage around.

Perhaps Rekers was attracted to other proclamations in Geo’s profile. He is a light-skinned Puerto Rican with blues eyes and blond hair. Or that he can hold a conversation and is passionate. Or that his manhood is described as large and uncut.

“You could just say I love to have a good time,” Geo writes on his profile. “Very clean, professional, HIV and Disease FREE.”

But there’s more that qualifies him for carrying luggage.

“For a sensual meet or companionship,” he writes. “Will do anything you say as long as you ask :D Repeat encounters are always more exciting for me and make it more casual and comfortable for you as well.”

Dang. That explains it.

Noted blogger Joe. My. God. befriended Rekers yesterday on Facebook and got this reply from the good minister:

I have spent much time as a mental health professional and as a Christian minister helping and lovingly caring for people identifying themselves as “gay.” My hero is Jesus Christ who loves even the culturally despised people, including sexual sinners and prostitutes. Like Jesus Christ, I deliberately spend time with sinners with the loving goal to try to help them. Mark 2:16-17 reads, “16 When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the "sinners" and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: "Why does he eat with tax collectors and 'sinners'?" 17 On hearing this, Jesus said to them, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners." In fact, in a dialogue with hypocritical religious leaders, Jesus even stated to them, "I tell you the truth, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you. 32 For John came to you to show you the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes did. And even after you saw this, you did not repent and believe him. " (Matthew 21:31).

“Like John the Baptist and Jesus, I have a loving Christian ministry to homosexuals and prostitutes in which I share the Good News of Jesus Christ with them (see I Corinthians 6:8-11). Contrary to false gossip, innuendo, and slander about me, I do not in any way “hate” homosexuals, but I seek to lovingly share two types of messages to them, as I did with the young man called “Lucien” in the news story: [1] It is possible to cease homosexual practices to avoid the unacceptable health risks associated with that behavior, and [2] the most important decision one can make is to establish a relationship with God for all eternity by trusting in Jesus Christ’s sacrifice on the cross for the forgiveness of your sins, including homosexual sins. If you talk with my travel assistant that the story called “Lucien,” you will find I spent a great deal of time sharing scientific information on the desirability of abandoning homosexual intercourse, and I shared the Gospel of Jesus Christ with him in great detail.”

Really, minister?

“Lucien” – or Geo – is still selling his services on RentBoy.com. Guess the conversion effort was a failure. Again.

Surely this will continue to discredit Rekers and NARTH.

And what about the rabidly anti-gay Family Research Council, of which Rekers is a founding member? A search of the council’s website today comes up with zero references to Rekers.

How quickly the mighty doth fall.