The Trials of Ted Haggard
One of the things I realized a long time ago in life is even when people speak the same language they misunderstand each other all the time. When I moved to Australia to live for awhile, I got off the airplane and was greeted by a gentleman named Tony Duncan who, as he was loading my bags into his car, said, “After we get you moved in to your new place, we will stop by a hotel for a fag and some ale.” What I did not know is that a fag is another name for a cigarette, a hotel is a drinking establishment and ale is beer. What I thought was what a liberal country, offering me a homosexual when I got off the plane. Taken aback, I replied, “No thank you, I am from Iowa.” What being from Iowa had to do with saying no is beyond me, but it is all I could think of to say.
Who knew that Iowa, the land of corn, a butter cow, and covered bridges, the state crazy enough to vote for Pat Robertson, Gary Bauer, and Mike Huckabee in the Republican Primary, became the first state not located on one of the coasts to allow gay marriage. What makes it even more ironically delicious is that it was the efforts of the far right and their defense of marriage act that brought on this decision. Knowing God’s wrath, I quickly called home, surprisingly one of my relatives answered the phone, so not everyone had been turned into a pillar of salt and a cosmic black hole had not swallowed the entire state. I quickly asked her to look out the window if there was an elderly man building a rather large boat. No, there was not a storm cloud on the horizon. I then asked if the family dog was sleeping with the neighborhood cats. Again, strangely no. Earthquakes? No. Famine? No. Plagues? No. Frogs? No. Had all the first-borns been slain? No. Work with me here, God. Maybe a talking randy squirrel or two to show how much Adam and Steve tying the knot bothers You? Sorry. For a vengeful Almighty, the Big Guy is sure quiet. Iowa appeared to still be boring Iowa, just with a little more color and fashion sense. Okay, nothing appears to be different. At least when we voted for Huckabee He showed His displeasure with some flooding.
Here is the thing that I do not understand. Even though it is barely mentioned in the Bible and most of the major things like taking care of the poor are pretty much ignored, if you listen to the far right, the world is coming to an end if homosexuals are allowed to wed and not have sex like most straight couples I know. God is not upset because of unjust wars, or rich people taking advantage of the poor, or the fact that thousands in this country die needlessly because they lack needed health insurance, the sky is falling if two people born with an inclination to like the same sex are allowed the state protections that others are given. I truly believe that those sitting in the pews need to start doing some navel gazing about where their faith has gone awry when modern Christians seem more concerned about zygotes and homosexuality than what their Lord and Savior is preaching about in the Gospels.
I do not blame most people on the far right for their fuzzy thinking. Recent examinations of the brain have shown that the normal neural circuitry, when it comes to decision-making, changes when confronted with an “authority figure” or an “expert opinion.” In other words there is something in our evolutionary hardwiring that shuts down and curtails rational thought when someone in authority tells them what to think. The brain changes how it processes information when a leader tells a follower what to think. This phenomenon explains the blind obedience of the Fox News, dittohead zombie, Joe the Plumber types, how otherwise rational people can join the Klan, or become Nazis, and why some women are so willing to become second class citizens in their marriages. This evolutionary development makes complete sense in a hostile environment, red in tooth and claw, where following a leader is often the difference between life and death but in civilized societies it often leads to all sorts of problems and nowhere is this truer than when it comes to one’s religious faith.
The finger of blame needs to be pointed at the leaders who truly know better, men who, for the sake of their own power and vanity have twisted Scripture worse than a plate of worms. My personal opinion of the worst of these gentlemen are the likes of former mega-church pastor Ted Haggard, a man who verbally beat up homosexuals while the entire time he was dancing to the Village People under the disco ball. With all apologies to director Alexandra Pelosi, I can not find one ounce of compassion for a gentleman who was given a golden parachute by his former church after getting caught doing meth with a gay prostitute. (Pelosi does not detail that New Life Church gave him $138,000 in severance pay, an $85,000 bonus for 2006, their $700,000 home in Colorado Springs, and an unknown amount in donations to help the family get back on their feet.) It is easy to talk about the kindness of strangers when you have a mattress with over $1 million in it for a rainy day.)
For those of you who have forgotten Rev. Teddy, he was one of the bigwig pastors on the religious right, who not only was the leader of the National Association of Evangelicals, featured in the documentaries Jesus Camp and Richard Dawkins’ The Root of All Evil?, but bragged that he was part of a weekly teleconference with the President and had been named by Time magazine as one of the 25 most influential evangelicals in America in 2005. Then his house of cards fell apart when a homosexual prostitute named Mike Jones came forward to detail their methamphetamine-fueled interaction. Haggard was ushered off stage right to get his heterosexual groove back but you cannot keep a good drama queen down, so he’s back in the public eye.
So, what is Ted and his family up to? In Alexandra Pelosi’s documentary Haggard tries to garner public sympathy by wearing the horse-haired shirt and showing how his family’s life has become that of the Little Match Girl. Instead of detailing that his leaving Colorado was part of a financial severance package, so that his former church did not have to deal with his face constantly popping up on the local evening news, especially if Teddy happened to slip on a banana peel and accidentally fall on another homosexual. Instead, he has been “banished,” moving from “safe house” to “safe house,” wife and kids trailing. Moses might have been wandering in the desert, but not because it was raining men. Ted’s wife, Gayle, does her best Hillary Clinton impression, declaring that she is standing by her man because she does not “believe in writing people off.” (Again, Pelosi fails to show public statements by these two martyrs attacking our former First Lady for keeping her marriage together when President Clinton had a thing for chunky interns.) Much like Chelsea Clinton, the Haggard children seem to be well adjusted despite the media circus that surrounded them.
Pelosi, the daughter of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, who developed a personal relationship with Haggard while filming her documentary Friends of God, allows Haggard to work the sympathy of the audience while admitting that he is “a sinner” but of course the sin is not completely his fault, after all, he was molested as a kid. Got to play that molestation card, especially when you get caught with your hand in the cookie jar of daddy parts. Finally, Pelosi could have interviewed those in the Colorado Springs gay and lesbian community hurt by Haggard’s words and confront him with them.
I can already hear those on the right, “But Trevor, the Bible is against the homosexuality.” First, it is only a handful of sentences and, second, Scripture says a lot of things we now ignore. We do not stone our disrespectful children or adulterous couples. Our entire economy is based on a system, usury, frowned upon. Women are no longer the property of their husbands who can be beaten with a rod when they act foolish. Plantation owners preached Christianity to their slaves thinking it would make them better workers because after all the Almighty gave his seal of approval to slavery. African-Americans rightly found a God in these same words who was first and foremost with them and their liberation. Individual sentences found in the Bible should not be turned into mini-idols on which to peg our biases and prejudices. Instead, I believe the Christian Bible should be seen as a manger which contains the Christ child. The manger in and of itself is meaningless unless one is focused on the event found there in. Every sentence of the Bible needs to be read through the liberating presence of Jesus Christ. Figuring out what that means I am afraid takes a lot of thinking and not just blind following.
Verdict: Disappointing