Ted Haggard’s Conflict
By Adele Sakler
Even though i do not always agree with Andrew Sullivan, i still love his writing and perspective. He often challenges me, which is a good thing, even if i don’t rightly admit it! Today i found a beautiful commentary by him on the Ted Haggard saga and really resonated with what he said. i experienced a lot of what Sullivan communicates and my prayer is that we will lift our brother in Christ, Ted, and his family up in prayer. Let’s not treat him in kind as to how his church and others have treated him. i think Ted is in major denial about his sexuality and really conflicted in reconciling his faith and his sexuality. i think many of us can identify with him on that alone.
Ray Boltz’s ex-wife, Carol, is an ardent supporter of our community and maybe one day can reach out to Haggard’s wife. She blogs at My heart goes out . . . and has come full circle in her journey as a once married woman whose husband came out.Ray Boltz was once a very successful Contemporary Christian singer back in the 1990′s. i have corresponded with Carol via email and she is a lovely woman!
Here is Andrew Sullivan’s thoughts:
“I watched the whole thing. I feel for Haggard – because he is trapped between who he is and his internalized belief that God cannot love him for who he is. But God can love him for being gay. And does love him for being gay. This is hard, I know. Accepting God’s unconditional love for me was the hardest part of keeping hold of my Christian faith. My childhood and adolescence were difficult to the point of agony, an agony my own church told me was my just desert. But I saw in my own life and those of countless others that the suppression of these core emotions and the denial of their resolution in love always always leads to personal distortion and compulsion and loss of perspective. Forcing gay people into molds they do not fit helps no one. It robs them of dignity and self-worth and the capacity for healthy relationships. It wrecks family, twists Christianity, violates humanity. It must end.
Haggard’s betrayal, his lies, his compulsions, his deceits are the excruciating function of this human dead end. What we have to do as Christians is open up this always-closing door, to find a way past the abstractions and neuroses of fundamentalism to a more honest and more human acceptance of gay people as God-like. Gay people, like all people, need love. We need family. And yet we are uniquely and cruelly denied these things. And no love and no family can be genuinely based on the deceit or self-hatred that are the alternatives.
That is why I am so insistent on marriage. It alone heals this deep wound and brings gay men and women into the human family where they can finally be allowed to flourish for who they are, rather than to become the contorted, distorted shapes the rest of the world is comfortable with. Anything else actually sustains the wound, because it imprints the indignity and perpetuates the pain.”
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Adele Sakler currently resides in Richmond, Virginia and blogs as Existential Punk at www.ExistentialPunk.com and is the creator and site administrator of Queermergent at Queermergent.wordpress.com. She is currently going through long-term treatment for Chronic Lyme Disease, other tick-borne diseases, and heavy metal toxicity.
Adele has been a Christ-follower for 20 years and an “out” queer woman for two and-a-half years. Her involvement with the emerging church and Emergent Village has filled the better part of 10 years.
Kittredge Cherry
February 4, 2009
Thanks for sharing Andrew Sullivan’s well reasoned take on Ted Haggard. As a lesbian Christian, it was heartbreaking to hear Haggard unable to say that God accepts gay people. I saw Haggard’s interview with Larry King ended up feeling shocked by his callous disregard for the young church volunteer that he forced into a sexual encounter. There’s a lot more to this story than just the gay angle.
I enjoy your blog. I’ll add it to my blog roll.
queermergent
February 4, 2009
Kittredge,
Thank you for joining the conversation and welcome! Also appreciate the add to your blog roll.
i think he and his wife are in so much denial but i believe we need to extend him our prayers and grace as many of us in the LGBTQ community have been in similar situations.i was in the closet for years and denied i was queer. The treatment they received from their church is horrific. i don’t mean taking him off as pastor, but making the family LEAVE the state of Colorado. HOW un-Christ-like that is to me.
Warm Regards,
Adele
Trumpet12
February 4, 2009
I agree with Kittredge that Haggard’s worst “sin” if you can call this a sin was his abuse of power with the young male congregant. I was shocked at the callous disregard for the young man’s feelings, mental health etc. To me, as a woman, it seemed like a male version of male on male rape– the type of thing all men feel entitled to.
That was the biggest shock.
I really feel sorry for Haggard’s wife who is married to this moral sexist zero.
I’m not so sure marriage is the answer for lesbians and gays, since I believe we have to really examine this patriarchal institution.
When you see these men abuse power and take advantage of women, you see the truth of male supremacy run amuck.
Andrew Sullivan is no paragon of virtue either, and I doubt he has the emotional maturity ever to get married even if it was legal, but that’s another story entirely. And also he supports the catholic church, which blatantly suppresses women, commits major crimes in the name of god, and would be enemy number one on the patriarchal abuse of power parade, but hey, he’s a gay man, and it’s ok to support male supremacy if you’re a gay man right?
queermergent
February 4, 2009
Trumpet 12,
Welcome and thank you for your comments.
Haggard should be held accountable for his abuse of power, but to me, the church sinned greatly by forcing the Haggard’s to move out of Colorado. Where is love and restoration in doing that?
Warm Regards,
Adele
Trinidad. Adventist. Gay?!
February 4, 2009
But God can love him for being gay. And does love him for being gay.
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God doe snot love any one of us for being or doing anything. His love for us is independent of any of our properties and actions.
Indeed, He even loves the devil.
The question becomes: What is “love”?
If you are displeased with someone, does that mean you “hate” them?
Trinidad. Adventist. Gay?!
February 4, 2009
To me, as a woman, it seemed like a male version of male on male rape– the type of thing all men feel entitled to.
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I think there is a mix-up in this phrase somewhere.
queermergent
February 5, 2009
Trinidad,
Being displeased with someone does not necessarily mean one ‘hates’ the one they are displeased with. Yet, when people use their displeasure to prevent rights bestowed to everyone else is not very loving. i may not love someone, but i could like them. i may not love or like someone,but not hate them, but just have no regard for them.
Adele
Trumpet12
February 5, 2009
I was a little shocked that the entire Haggard family was banned from Colorado. Again, once the patriarch goofs up, I guess the wife and kids are forced to lose their home, friends and neighborhood too.
However, after this latest revelation that Haggard had more encounters with men, and the sleazy nature of the abuse of power with a congregant, I now assume that there is a lot more out there, and the church feared lawsuits. Not that this is an excuse for kicking people out of the state, but then again, Haggard took the money in exchange for this agreement.
As the right wing continues to be more and more fanatic about the behavior of gay men, the underlying causes of the men in charge bear paying attention to.
I think we need a moratorium on men even talking about human sexuality from the pulpit these days, and I recommend a period of fasting and repentence for their rape and abuse of children, for their abuse of power, and for the abuse they subject their wives to. Shame on them all!