Ted Haggard gaysexmeth meltdown!

[Birdy]

easy there cutthroat.

gotta break this stuff down somehow.

Edited November 7, 2006 by Guest

[phorbesie]

I think it's pretty sad and even sadder that we as a society feel the need to rub that little bit of salt in just to make a bad situation even worse.

even worse how? this guy is about as 'worse' as there is.

should we say "well, he did all that sick and mean stuff, but he's really an OK guy within, so it's all good, here's a daisy chain (hehe ) for you sir"...?

this dude was not a 'to each their own' kinda guy.

[Booche]

Make sure everyone kicks him right square in the nuts while he is deservedly down.

[Biggest Fan]

Birdy your all right in my book.

There's already enough 'haten' going on in this world.

[djmelbatoast]

There's already enough 'haten' going on in this world.

Yeah, by Ted Haggard.

[Hux]

....good thing there weren't more Birdys around during the early days of the civil rights movement....ohhh stop criticizing those "whites-only" drinking fountains there's enough hate in the world brah.

I mean, defending a fraud bigot who's basically breeding a culture of intolerance becauase finger pointing is bad?

NICE.

[Birdy]

Biggest Fan Said:There's already enough 'haten' going on in this world.

djmelbatoast said:

Yeah, by Ted Haggard.

by us all.

thanks BF!!

even worse how? this guy is about as 'worse' as there is.

should we say "well, he did all that sick and mean stuff, but he's really an OK guy within, so it's all good, here's a daisy chain (hehe ) for you sir"...?

this dude was not a 'to each their own' kinda guy.

what this guy is or isn't really has nothing to do with what i'm saying... i'm talking about how we as a society respond to this kind of stuff.. how we all collectively jump in to stone throw. i'm no fan of a stone throw. really, where's the daisy chain (hehe god i love zero for that one) in a stone throw? focusing on the negative to make way for the positive seems tiring and really futile.

Edited November 7, 2006 by Guest

[Birdy]

....good thing there weren't more Birdys around during the early days of the civil rights movement....ohhh stop criticizing those "whites-only" drinking fountains there's enough hate in the world brah.

I mean, defending a fraud bigot who's basically breeding a culture of intolerance becauase finger pointing is bad?

NICE.

hux for the love of god, brush up on your reading comprehension. i'm not defending the bigot, i'm responding to OUR RESPONSE of what this guy did.

[phorbesie]

yes birdy i know what you meant, which is what i quoted and responded to. you don't have to repeat yourself again and again.

[d_rawk]

Birdy, I tend to agree with you.

I don't see Haggard as hypocrite in the sense of saying one thing but believing another. It seems to me that he is pretty sincere in thinking that homosexuality is a flaw of character and a deviancy, and he's probably tortured himself to death over the desires he has been trying to beat back his entire life.

He has described himself as "repulsive". Certainly his adult life must have been torn between his strongest convictions which said one thing, and the full force of 'that beast inside' which said another. I don't think it is an accident that conservative evangelical religious groups -- or the celibate Catholic church -- attract scandals like this. If you are terrified and full of shame about who you are, it is likely a natural move to put yourself in a position where you don't feel you will have opportunities to act those things out. Even if only subconsciously.

It's just a sad story all around. It's good that this part of his life has been exposed -- hopefully he'll have to come to terms with these things on some level, and maybe the rigidity of his thinking will soften a bit. Maybe those who have shared his convictions will have to take a moment to pause and re-evaluate. One can hope.

The things he has said are damn infuriating. But how awful must it be to condemn something so strongly -- believing sincerely that it need be condemned -- while also being that same object of condemnation?

The man probably already loathes himself enough for all of us.

[Birdy]

ha, sorry phorbesie. seems i've lost the ability to give the benefit of the doubt. :crazy:

to really respond to what you're saying, i'll say this:

i don't think it's bad that we talk about what this guy has done or that we recognize that it's bad, but i don't see how any good can come out of using it as a tool politically, or to rub that salt in for whatever personal satisfaction we get from another's suffering, as in what i responded to initially, the "Xmas has come early for the Democrats". i think it says something really desperate about our society that we would look at someone's downfall as opportunity for our own advancement. that's what i meant by "worse". i'm not excusing any sort of behaviour, i'm not handing daisy chains over, i'm just commenting on a sad state of affairs.

Edited November 8, 2006 by Guest

[Birdy]

drawk has some solid observations.

[ollie]

That's an interesting take d_rawk. I need to look into this story more but my initial cynical reaction is to believe that he knew what he was doing, on both ends of the scale. Then again I tend to think that evangelicals have to be sociopaths in the first place. That he was also a drug and sex addict is something I assume goes with the territory. Look at Jim Baker and Jerry Falwell.

I also see this in the big picture as another expose on the prudish hypocrisy of religion and our society at large when it comes to sexuality.

But yeah, this will be spun for political gain and scandalous headlines and nothing more. Until Ted Haggard's redemption that is.

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

That's an interesting take d_rawk. I need to look into this story more but my initial cynical reaction is to believe that he knew what he was doing, on both ends of the scale. Then again I tend to think that evangelicals have to be sociopaths in the first place. That he was also a drug and sex addict is something I assume goes with the territory. Look at Jim Baker and Jerry Falwell.

Careful - nobody's ever successfully pinned anything on Falwell except being a racist (again, see his comments on MLK during the Civil Rights action days) (and, well, bully and idiot). Bakker is another story; Tammy Faye, at least, came out being friendly with all sorts of folks).

I do think d_rawk's onto something, though, saying that he's sincere in what he professes, and/but hypocritical because he's driven by deeper and stronger currents that he won't recognise. He's put himself into hell, I think, and since I don't believe that there is a hell in the afterlife, I mean that in the strongest possible sense. I'm sure he's a total, complete mess right now, and for that, I feel sorry for him. Whether he gets any wiser, though, is anybody's guess.

I can't believe I haven't checked in on these folks yet, but they'd be the first ones whose opinions on all this I'd want to hear - Mel White's group, Soulforce , which exists largely to help out GLBT religious types (largely evangelicals). White himself was a ghost writer for Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, and gay, and put himself through every kind of "treatment" (including electroshock) to rid himself of that, until he just one day figured that's how God wanted him to be. His bosses didn't, though, and they've been (to put it lightly) at odds ever since.

[edit to add:] Here - save anybody the extra click -

Soulforce Urges Compassion for Haggard and Accountability for the National Association of Evangelicals

******************************************

SOULFORCE PRESS RELEASE: November 6, 2006

For Immediate Release

Contact: Paige Schilt, Media Director

Cell: 512-659-1771

paige@soulforce.org

******************************************

(Austin, TX) -- In response to the news that Rev. Ted Haggard has been dismissed by New Life Church and resigned as President of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), Soulforce Executive Director Jeff Lutes urged the gay community to be compassionate and simultaneously called on the leaders of the NAE to claim responsibility for their role in the crisis.

"Rev. Haggard is just one more tragic example of how lives are destroyed by the lies about gay and lesbian people perpetuated by the NAE, the Religious Right, and both the Protestant and Roman Catholic Church. Taught by the church to hate himself, the only option from his point of view was to lead a psychologically and spiritually damaging double life marked by denial and self-destructive behavior. Rev. Haggard is a victim of religion-based bigotry that regularly demeans and demoralizes gay and lesbian people and refuses to acknowledge that we are part of the American fabric, and that many of us form loving families and practice a deep faith in God."

The NAE holds that "homosexuality is a deviation from the Creator's plan for human sexuality." In a 2004 policy statement, the organization opposes legislation that would protect gays and lesbians from hate crimes or employment discrimination on the grounds that "such legislation inevitably is perceived as legitimatizing [sic] the practice of homosexuality and elevates that practice to a level of an accepted moral standard."

Haggard submitted his resignation as President of the NAE on Thursday, shortly after allegations of homosexual activity were aired on Denver talk radio. On Saturday, Haggard was removed as pastor of New Life Church in Colorado Springs. In a letter to his congregation, Haggard wrote "there's a part of my life that is so repulsive and dark that I have been warring against it for all my adult life." He also wrote that the church's overseers have required him to "submit to the oversight of Dr. James Dobson, Pastor Jack Hayford, and Pastor Tommy Barnett. Those men will perform a thorough analysis of my mental, spiritual, emotional and physical life. They will guide me through a program with the goal of healing and restoration for my life, my marriage, and my family."

In reaction to the unfolding events, Lutes said "Our community's anger at Rev. Haggard's hypocrisy is completely understandable. However, my hope is that our community will take the high road and extend an olive branch of friendship and support when he is ready to fully come out as a gay man. Dobson and the others will counsel him to bury, deny, and repress his sexuality even deeper than before. They will wound his spirit, and he is going to need our prayers and our compassionate message that God loves him, affirms him, and calls him to live his life openly with honesty and integrity."

Well put, imo.

Edited November 8, 2006 by Guest

[Birdy]

i think each and every one of us have it in us to faulter or fuck up or lose ourselves, and because in life it's so easy to put yourself on the wrong track, to be influenced, to turn to the bad, we should feel sorry for him. he's a fellow human being jorneying down the wrong path. if there's anything we can do as a species that would be positive, it would be to reach out our hands and help him stand up, instead we debate whether it's ok to kick him while he's down.

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

I know I certainly feel that urge to "help" him along to get what he's done all this time, and sometimes that gets expressed in the language of kicking him squarely in the crotch.

I've listened more closely than I can now take to these folks for an awfully long time, though, and yes, they can be downright stubborn and muleheaded, and, of course, self-punitive, in the pursuit of abstact ideals that their own lives don't bear out.

[Birdy]

haha!

i feel like we should all hug or something!

edit to add: just want to clarify, this could be an ill advised smoke break talking, or the real birdy... time will tell!

Edited November 8, 2006 by Guest

[ollie]

Then again I tend to think that evangelicals have to be sociopaths in the first place.

Just want to clarify that I meant televangelists and the like, and not their followers.

[ollie]

That's an interesting take d_rawk. I need to look into this story more but my initial cynical reaction is to believe that he knew what he was doing' date=' on both ends of the scale. Then again I tend to think that evangelicals have to be sociopaths in the first place. That he was also a drug and sex addict is something I assume goes with the territory. Look at Jim Baker and Jerry Falwell.[/quote']

Careful - nobody's ever successfully pinned anything on Falwell except being a racist (again, see his comments on MLK during the Civil Rights action days) (and, well, bully and idiot).

Jimmy Swaggart! My bad.

[d_rawk]

Rev. Haggard is just one more tragic example of how lives are destroyed by the lies about gay and lesbian people perpetuated by the NAE, the Religious Right, and both the Protestant and Roman Catholic Church. Taught by the church to hate himself, the only option from his point of view was to lead a psychologically and spiritually damaging double life marked by denial and self-destructive behavior. Rev. Haggard is a victim of religion-based bigotry that regularly demeans and demoralizes gay and lesbian people and refuses to acknowledge that we are part of the American fabric, and that many of us form loving families and practice a deep faith in God.

Beautiful. Thanks for posting that link/quote, DEM. That's what I was trying to get at, but I lack such eloquence. Suddenly very interested in the organization. I do think that "religion-based bigotry" might be more accurately rendered as just "bigotry" plain and simple (is the United Church not religious, for example?), but that's a small nitpick for such a well written appeal.

Dobson and the others will counsel him to bury, deny, and repress his sexuality even deeper than before. They will wound his spirit, and he is going to need our prayers and our compassionate message that God loves him, affirms him, and calls him to live his life openly with honesty and integrity.

Indeed.

[phishtaper]

Rev. John J. Smid - Executive Director, Love in Action

frightening ...

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

It just gets uglier (as predicted).

Haggard Begins Spiritual 'Restoration'

Tarnished Evangelical Leader Faces Long, Grueling Spiritual Restoration After Sex Scandal

By DAN ELLIOTT

DENVER Nov 8, 2006 (AP)— There will be prayer, and perhaps the laying on of hands. There will be counseling and a confession. And there will be advice, confrontation and rebuke from "godly men" appointed to oversee the spiritual "restoration" of the Rev. Ted Haggard.

After tumbling from the pinnacle of the American evangelical movement amid allegations he snorted meth and cavorted with a male prostitute, Haggard has agreed to a rehabilitation process that could last three to five years.

"I see success approximately 50 percent of the time," said H.B. London, vice president for church and clergy at Focus on the Family, the conservative Christian ministry in Colorado Springs. "Guys just wear out and they can no longer subject themselves to the process."

Those who fail "end up selling cars or shoes or something, and being miserable and angry the rest of their lives," London said.

Haggard was president of the National Association of Evangelicals and senior pastor of the 14,000-member New Life Church in Colorado Springs until last week, when a Denver man said Haggard paid him for sex nearly every month for three years and sometimes took methamphetamine during the encounters.

Haggard denied having sex with the man; he admitted buying meth but said he threw it away unused. He resigned from the NAE and days later was fired from his church after confessing to unspecified "sexual immorality."

London, who is not involved in Haggard's restoration, said the process will demand honesty from Haggard and determination from his overseers.

"It cannot be just a matter of friendship. It will have to become almost a confrontational relationship," he said. "You've got to confess your sins and you've got to have a group of people around you who will not let you whitewash the issue."

The process includes counseling, in groups and alone, and prayer. Each restoration is unique, with a program tailored for the needs of the participant.

"From the Christian perspective, we think in terms of prayer, we think in terms of what we call godly counsel, where godly men who are clean themselves insert themselves in the life of the one who is struggling," London said.

The symbolic laying on of hands may also be a part of the recovery, London said.

"I'm sure there will be those who lay their hands on Pastor Haggard as an act of faith, calling on the act of God to restore and heal," he said. "The prayer can be therapeutic, the laying on of hands can be ceremonial."

One of the men who agreed to oversee the restoration, Focus on the Family founder James Dobson, has already withdrawn, citing a lack of time. The other two Pastors Jack Hayford of The Church on the Way in Van Nuys, Calif., and Tommy Barnett of First Assembly of God in Phoenix declined to comment on the specifics of Haggard's program.

It isn't clear whether Haggard will try to return to the ministry, at New Life or elsewhere. "He says that he has committed his life to God and that he is looking for direction as to where God can best use him," said Leonard Chessler, Haggard's lawyer and friend.

The Rev. Shawn Spear, a Brethren in Christ pastor in Hollidaysburg, Pa., knows at least part of what lies ahead for Haggard. After admitting he had an affair with a woman, Spear endured a painful yearlong separation from the ministry, went to counseling six times a month and worked to earn back the trust of his wife and his church.

It was brutal for his wife, Joy, as well. She said she suffered nightmares, had trouble sleeping and at times wanted to die.

"If God could have taken me at that point I would have been pleased, because you just didn't feel like you could take another day," she said.

Now they feel blessed: They say their marriage survived, even flourished, and their church accepted Shawn Spear back as minister.

"There's hope," he said. "There's grace. There's restoration."

The volumes that this piece speaks, on so many points and so many levels....

Interesting bit, imo, I bolded above - anyone else say, "Freudian slip"?

[hamilton]

What, you mean gay men can't turn straight through the power of prayer? Blasphemy!

[ollie]

It just gets uglier (as predicted).

Haggard Begins Spiritual 'Restoration'

Yep, I called it:

But yeah, this will be spun for political gain and scandalous headlines and nothing more. Until Ted Haggard's redemption that is.

I just didn't think it would be this soon.

Sociopaths, the lot of them.

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

Time for a little Renedification....