Run, Ted, run!

November 11, 2006

Guest Post by Morbo

And now some non-election news: When we last left former National Association of Evangelicals President Ted Haggard, he had confessed his sins and asked for forgiveness.

“I am a deceiver and a liar,” Haggard wrote in a letter of apology to his congregation. “There’s a part of my life that is so repulsive and dark that I have been warring against it for all of my adult life.”

Oh, now stop, Ted! You’re gay. It’s not like you ate the school crossing guard.

Here’s more bad news: Rather than learn to accept his sexual orientation, Haggard has decided to put himself in the care of a bunch of evangelical leaders for “rehabilitation.” James Dobson of Focus on the Family was among the original group but recently dropped out, citing the press of his other duties. (Wow, some friend he is. Always there when you need him — not!)

Anyway, nothing good can come of this approach.

These nuts will simply force Haggard through “reparative therapy” to “cure” him of his homosexuality. They might as well try to cure him of being a white guy.

I suppose there’s a good chance Haggard will emerge saying he is cured. He might even write a book. But I look for him to fall again, Jimmy Swaggart-like, by the end of the decade.

I have a message for Ted: There is a better way. Come out of the closet. It’s dark and scary in there. Walk into the light. Accept yourself. If there’s a God, he made you the way you are for a reason. Deal with that.

If Christianity is important to you, keep it. There are other varieties out there aside from fundamentalist Christianity. It’s obvious one thing about you has to change. I’m not a psychologist, but my guess is it’s a heck of a lot easier to change your religion than your sexual orientation.

Those from authoritarian or repressive cultures/religions/families are frequently taught to view their natural state as sinful. (in the US this is particularly anything dealing with nakedness or sex)

Thus Ted probably doesn’t even view himself as gay…only sinful. OTOH he could just be a run of the mill sociopath using religion. His real “sin” is of course, the lying and deception he perpetrated upon his family, followers, and possibly himself. I am not sure if his hypocrisy is a “sin”…but it sure is detestable.

Most of those who gravitate to the repressionistic, political right have this problem. They tend to eschew logic and rationality for authoritarian views or “beliefs”. I figure they are either lacking in internal moral guidelines or they are using the authoritarian approach as a vehicle for greed and power.

  • The shadow knows. In Jesus Camp Haggard is gay-bashing to the kids and jokes that “I’ll tell your wife.” Freud lives through these slips.

    The repression always leaks out through the shadow. That’s why Bush can’t talk. His shadow is like some internal imp (the imp of the Chimp) always trying to grab the microphone. Talk about inconvient truths, George sometimes speaks accidental truths. Like the only way we can win in Iraq is to leave.

    So we are led by people at war with themselves inside and what do we get outside? War.

    That’s why we need Chimpeachment!

  • Since Taggard so obviously does not want to be gay, isn’t this proof that being gay isn’t a choice? He may spend his entire life not acting upon it, but he is gay.

  • Gay, straight, bi? Who cares? The guy is a rich, power-mad creep and his chosen path to the heights involved giving God a bad name and stepping on people who have enough shit to deal with. Who gives half a flaming damn if he was suffering some sort of deep internal conflict? Boo fucking hoo. Lots of people suffer all sorts of crap without a nice comfy home and money and a fricking flock of fans.

    His half-arsed apology gave his followers permission to continue gay bashing without actually admitting anything beyond some sort of sexually immoral behaviour (I still say it involved farm animals and a tub of lard). If he wants to sit around gazing at his navel with a bunch of his fellow fundies…fine. It keeps those bastards off the streets.

  • Let me interject some politics into this discussion. Did anyone else notice that Dobson was there to “help Haggard” before the election and dropped him like a hot potato once the Republicans were thumped? I think the person Dobson was trying to help was Rove not Haggard. He had hoped to minimize the damage done to the Republicans by the Haggard revelations, but this became moot once we threw the bums out.

  • Haggard is a slow motion train wreck so long as he won’t face up the fact of his being gay and dealing with relatively minor consquences of that. “To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.” (Polonius, Hamlet, I, 3).

  • I’m not a psychologist, but my guess is it’s a heck of a lot easier to change your religion than your sexual orientation.

    I know this was just a flip closing line, but did you ever see the documentary “Trembling Before G*d”, about gay Orthodox Jews? The whole premise of the movie is that the people profiled CAN’T just give up on their religion, but they can’t change their sexual orientation, either, so they’re essentially stuck in the middle. One of the most heart-rending scenes comes when a gay man who left Orthodox Judaism years ago goes back to his childhood neighborhood on a Friday afternoon and starts crying as he sees everyone rushing home for the Sabbath.

    Being neither ultra-religious nor gay, I can’t completely relate, but I can see how untenable that situation might be. I feel bad for Haggard for the position he’s in, because his nature is conspiring against everything he has always believed. But it’s roughly analogous to a childhood abuse victim who goes on to abuse others. We feel sympathy for the initial victim, but repulsion at his response to it. Haggard found himself in a tough situation and handled it horribly.

  • “Let me interject some politics into this discussion. Did anyone else notice that Dobson was there to “help Haggard” before the election and dropped him like a hot potato once the Republicans were thumped?”

    Actually, Dobson dropped out on Monday and the story was reported Tuesday. The only thing that changed between Sunday and Monday that I know of is that Mike Jones for the first time said on talk radio on Monday morning that Ted is a catcher, not a pitcher.

  • I’ve already mis-posted my reply on another thread, so I won’t “punish” you by repeating it. Zorro (post #7) makes an excellent point, though. Leaving the religion one was raised in is a horribly difficult thing to do, whether you later come to see that religon for what it is (a mind control technique), or not.

    I know that I, personally, considered suicide during my coming-out process.

    Thank the giant flying purple unicorn of Saturn that I didn’t. 😉

  • Those from authoritarian or repressive cultures/religions/families are frequently taught to view their natural state as sinful. (in the US this is particularly anything dealing with nakedness or sex) — Evergreen, @1

    I’ve always thought of it (pre-occupation with sex and seeing nakedness as sinful) as a uniquely American “thing”, rather than an outcome of authoritarian/repressive ideology.

    Poland of my childhood was, certainly, politically authoritarian and religiously repressive (communist-red on the outside, Catholic-white on the inside. A perfect radish) but I was *appalled* when my (American born-and-bred) husband suggested I should not let my — then 2yr old — son run around the yard naked, because it was unseemly and might offend the neighbors.

    What, in God’s name, is offensive about the nakedness of a small child (of either sex)? It’s human form at its most attractive and innocent. As far as I’m concerned, what’s *really offensive* is a 2yr old girl wearing a 2-piece bikini; it suggests a sexual “message” (breast covering) which really isn’t there. Even in Islam — as rigid a religion as you can think of — girls don’t become “women” (and put on the all- concealing clothes, including the veil) till they’re nine… (I strongly recommend the Iranian film “The Day I Became a Woman)

  • The next scam:
    God has cured me of homosexual tendencies. Then comes the book tour and the lectures where rubes are conned into putting $20.00 into the collection plate. Anybody want to take odds?

  • Thank the giant flying purple unicorn of Saturn that I didn’t.

    What’s with this unicorn, I’ve seen this several times here tonight? Don’t you know that the one true deity is the flying spaghetti monster (may you be touched by his noodly appendage). The purple unicorn is an obvious poor attempt at copying—notice he flies, which of course is ridiculous (except for the spaghetti monster, of course).

    Enough with your heresy!

    Off with his head!

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