Lately, Pastor Ted Haggard has been run- well, quite Haggard – by the press, over his alleged three year tryst with a male prostitute. Finally, Haggard came out over the weekend, and in the worst way. In a letter to his former congregation, the one-time powerful minister who had the faithfully-listening ear of the White House, admits to a “dark side.”
“There is part of my life that is so repulsive and dark that I’ve been warring against it all of my adult life,” Haggard said in the letter read by Pastor Larry Stockstill, a member of the board of overseers of New Life Church.
The events leading up tot this statement aren’t the true tragedy here. The real tragedy here is very telling in the pastor’s statement. The conservative evangelical right in this country is very ingrained with the idea that homosexuality is repulsive and abhorrent, so much so that we have people like this running the show. They themselves are gay or at least have homosexual tendencies, and they find this so sinful and repulsive that they work hard to banish it, and punish the rest of us who see no problem with this. It’s this bigotry through self-loathing and guilt that is the worst and most dangerous kind.
It also makes you wonder how many people in the Christian right are similarly “battling” such “demons.” We need not mention the spectre of Mark Foley, also once part of the Republican leadership. And I find the feeble comebacks of the right – that all of these allegations are coming out right before elections because they’re politically motivated – to not wash. So what if the allegations are politically motivated? This doesn’t make them any less true. In fact, I’d say that accusers would be doing a disservice if they waited for a less politically-charged moment, when voters can’t make a decision.