Just before Christmas last year, Ted Haggard was forced to step down from his position as pastor for an evangelical congregation after it became newsworthy that he had carried on multi-year affair with Mike Jones.
At the time, the usual list of suspects rallied around Haggard and said they would work to "help him through" his "struggle with homosexuality".
Today, we see Mr. Haggard claiming that he is entirely straight now.
Were his dalliances with Mike Jones a one time thing, I'd almost be inclined to believe Haggard had done little more than "an exploration". I'm sorry to say that a three plus year long affair doesn't exactly sound like a "one time dalliance" to me - it sounds rather like a persistent pattern.
The Rev. Ted Haggard emerged from three weeks of intensive counseling convinced he is "completely heterosexual" and told an oversight board that his sexual contact with men was limited to his accuser.
Now, I'm not saying that there aren't people who benefit from "reparative therapy", or the kind of "intensive" program Haggard has been subjected to, but I suspect that there is more to this picture than meets the eye.
First, I can't imagine how a three week long course of therapy (or even 3 month) is going to significantly change a pattern that has been ongoing for many years. I'm more than a little suspicious of the claim that Haggard's "only" dalliances were with Jones - I would have to guess that he has been "checking out" the guys for a long time, whether he wanted to admit that he found them attractive or not.
Second, if I look at Haggard's past behaviour, his actions are clearly someone who is bisexual - even if his attraction to men is "secondary" (or relatively weak). While he may be able to live primarily a heterosexual life, that does not change the reality. Were he but a teenager, I'd be inclined to guess that it was the fleeting experimentation of youth. Haggard is no teenager, which leads me to suspect that the pattern of behaviour is in fact well-entrenched. Okay, so he only got caught once. If I use the "shoplifter rule", he's probably been at it for quite a while.
I would be much more comfortable if the claim that he felt he "could life in an exclusively heterosexual" relationship. Just because he is attracted to men doesn't make him a homosexual - in fact, the reality that he is also (apparently) happily married to a woman suggests clearly that he is bisexual. (Big deal!).
Instead, the dishonest twits that cook this crap up claim that he is "cured" and has somehow mystically shed his attraction to men.
2 comments:
I temper my scorn for Reverand Haggard with a dose of pity. Here is a man so caught up in the guilt of his religion that he must stamp out perfectly acceptable feelings of desire. He's compelled to deny himself something that obviously gives himself some measure of happiness - something more-or-less harmless (or would be harmless if it weren't for the meth and prostitutes).
His stance harms many others, it's true. But he's also hurting something deep within himself.
Quixote
It is the intellectual dishonesty that galls me so much, not the man.
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