So check this out over at AMERICABlog. Apparently, lots of religious right leaders knew that Ted Haggard was gay, including the Rev. Lou Sheldon, Chairman of the Traditional Values Coalition. By the way, don't visit that site unless you're prepared to read a lot of stuff that pretty much amounts to hate speech. Anyways, Sheldon claims that he knew Haggard was gay because Haggard apparently told him that "being gay is genetic". Sheldon says, "But I just knew he was covering up. They need to say that."

By "they", I'm assuming that Sheldon is referring to homosexuals. So according to Sheldon, if you believe that being gay is genetic or not a choice, like most of the scientific and medical community, not to mention a significant percentage of the general population, you must be gay. I think I'm beginning to understand this new Republican math; Karl Rove's personal "metrics" told him that the GOP was going to remain in power, and Sheldon's math tells him that about 40% of the population is gay. Very interesting.

Anyways, I'm actually beginning to feel sorry for Ted Haggard, isn't that crazy? When all this initially came out (no pun intended) I figured he was getting some poetic justice. Anti-gay pastor outed in the national media. But obviously, with a statement like "being gay is genetic", Haggard must feel on some level that all of this hostility in the Christian right for gay people is wrong, even if he participated in it himself. But you can understand why. With "friends" like Sheldon, who couldn't wait to tell the press that he just "knew" that Pastor Ted was gay or James Dobson, who in order to protect his own name (since it turns out that Mike Jones, the male escort who made the accusations initially refused to reveal Haggard's name, only saying that it was a prominent Colorado springs minister that he'd been having monthly trysts with), issued a backhanded statement two days after the initial accusation saying, "all of us at Focus on the Family are heartsick over the allegation, not yet confirmed, that Ted has had a private life with a homosexual for several years." Some friends.

I worry now about Pastor Ted. If he had people in his life who actually loved him, rather than the idea of him as the powerful and connected voice of the Christian right, people who wanted what was best for Ted rather than what will save face for the Evangelical movement, they'd probably tell him to accept himself for who he is, that the "sin" in what he did was the lying, adultery, and drug use, rather than the homosexual activity (possibly using a prostitute is ethically questionable). But I don't think Ted has people like that. He only has people who will tell him that his sexuality is a sickness that needs to be cured, and by the way, if we can't cure you, it's your fault, not ours. So Pastor Ted will probably be back in six months, claiming to be cured (and keeping his secrets more than ever), and he'll probably be as outspoken against gay rights as ever. He'll say, "Homosexuality is wrong, look at me, it ruined my life!" And he'll never even blink, never consider the idea that it wasn't being gay that ruined his life, it was being gay and duplicitous.

Categories: Opinion, Politics, Religion