Post a Comment On: Vigilance

Ted Haggard has become a sort of pet for us here, a kind of mascot. His is a story that ties all the rest of it together, it's the story of a man who has been a traitor to his own heart, who has taken his own dearest feelings of love and turned them into something ugly. Even beyond denigrating and denying his own natural sense of love, he went on the attack against others who loved in the same way, making their lives harder wherever he could, convincing others to join him in oppressing them.

Ted Haggard wasn't just a preacher, he was God's own preacher, the President of the National Association of Evangelicals -- this group has thirty million members. Imagine being able to make a statement and get it to thirty million Americans. Haggard was able to do that, and the message he sent was not one of healing and caring, but one of intolerance. He taught his followers that homosexuality is an abomination, he campaigned in favor of anti-gay laws, and at the same time he was hopelessly attracted to men.

His life collapsed around him when a male prostitute went to the news with his story of meetings for paid sex and crystal meth. It wasn't just a lapse, it wasn't that Haggard had a male lover in the community, these meetings were sordid by any standard -- and not because it was a man. This wasn't loving that got out of hand, there was no overwhelming passionate emotional attachment, this was a hooker and drugs. The leader of the nation's largest evangelical group revealed an inability to control himself that haunts the entire group.

I first got involved in the issue of discrimination against sexual minorities when a noisy group of nuts wanted to gut our county school district's new sex-ed curriculum, back in 2004. I didn't care about gay people in any special way, in my life gay people have simply been people, their sexual orientation never seemed to matter in any way that affected me. And to tell you the truth, I think that in the long run that's the best attitude for straight people to have about gays, it seems ideal to treat them as individuals, one at a time, you don't need to judge or stereotype. I don't feel obligated to like every gay person I meet, and I can't get too excited when they want to raise funds by sponsoring drag bingo or something, that's their thing. But it certainly doesn't hurt me any if they want to play drag bingo, I don't feel challenged or threatened by it, I just don't go.

There are those who feel that everything gay needs to be suppressed. Not only do they apparently feel a need to suppress homosexual tendencies in themselves, they need to suppress them when other people experience them. At first I was uneasy theorizing that anti-gay activists were people who "had issues" with their own sexuality, it seemed unkind or un-generous to think so, but it has become clear over the years that that is often the case. Otherwise none of it makes sense. Why would anyone care whether another person is attracted to the same or opposite sex? How could it possibly be anybody else's business? Why would somebody want to decide who somebody else should fall in love with?

We're supposed to feel sorry for poor Ted Haggard, "struggling" as he is with his sexuality. The solution to his problem is so obvious that no one can say it out loud. He is doing everything he can to focus on being heterosexual -- but Ted, the rest of us don't have to do that. In an interview with the Washington Post he said, "I have had to deal with issues, other issues associated with sexuality, and with the complexity of homosexuality and bisexuality and questions and feelings and thoughts and all that kind of thing." He is married to a woman, and he says he loves her and enjoys their relationship, and I don't have any reason to doubt him. But somehow the attraction of men was too much for him, and the marriage bed was not enough.

I can't advise him on what to do with his personal life. Maybe he shouldn't have married in the first place, he says his first homosexual experiments began at an early age and he certainly knew his own feelings by the time he married. Maybe he thought being married to a woman would make those feelings go away, I don't know, but it didn't. Now he's got a wife and family and I understand not wanting to give that up.

He is, though, in a position to do an incredible amount of good in his public life. Thirty million evangelicals could well benefit from Haggard's lesson. He didn't turn to homosexuality because he is a dark-hearted sinner who hates God, he had relationships with men because that's the way God made him. His life would have been entirely different if he had allowed himself, from the start, to date those who actually interested him, rather than who his church believed he should date. His marriage might not be the mess it is now if he had married a man in the first place. Outed, Ted Haggard is in a position to teach his evangelical following something important. He can teach them to love gay people and appreciate them as people. You don't have to "struggle" with your sexuality, trying to force love where it doesn't belong, it is fine to accept your natural feelings and let your love flow.

From this morning's Washington Post:
Two days after new allegations surfaced about the sexual behavior of the founder of a megachurch, the current pastor of New Life Church said Sunday that he was "sorry that this wound has been reopened for many of you" and said the church would recover from the latest report.

"One day we may have a little scar tissue, but the wounds will not define us," pastor Brady Boyd told the congregation.

Church officials learned more than two years ago about the alleged relationship between a male church volunteer and then-pastor Ted Haggard, Boyd said Friday.

Haggard left the church in late 2006, after a male prostitute in Denver said he had a three-year cash-for-sex relationship with Haggard. The former pastor has declined to comment on the new claim, reported by a Colorado Springs television station.

Boyd said an "overwhelming pool of evidence" pointed to an "inappropriate, consensual sexual relationship" between Haggard and the male volunteer for an extended period of time.

The pastor said that under a legal settlement the church reached with the man in 2007, neither side was to discuss the matter publicly. He said he went public only after learning that the man had talked to KRDO-TV.

Boyd said that the man was in his early 20s at the time and that he was certain the man was of legal age when the relationship began. At Church Founded By Haggard, an Apology
The story here is ... well, there are several stories. One is that Ted Haggard had a boyfriend in the church as well as his once-a-month prostitute. There is some question about the young man's age when the relationship began and about exactly how consensual their interactions were. There is no question that the church gave the young man a good amount of money with the agreement that he would keep the affair quiet. They say it wasn't hush money, but that is what that's called, people.

Ted Haggard is a homosexual or bisexual man who overcompensated in the ministry and built up a gigantic following of people who hung on his every word. He is attracted to men and claims also to be attracted to women, at least his wife. I don't think most people have a problem with that. Most people would disapprove of a married man going out and having sex with people he is not married to, and especially if he is a straight-and-narrow evangelical preacher who is telling other people to live humbly and faithfully. Most people would have a problem with an anti-gay gay man, the word "hypocrite" bubbles right to the surface in this discussion. He can un-do the hypocrisy though in a heartbeat, by spreading the word that gay people are just people, they can have pure hearts, Jesus loves them, Ted Haggard is in a position to bring an incredible amount of love and goodness to the world, if only he will quit the self-pity and the soap-opera terminology about "struggling" with his sexuality. Stop struggling, start accepting yourself -- the problem is not Haggard's sexuality but his community's illusions and prejudice about it.