Gayle Haggard: My husband (Ted Haggard) no longer gay
Watched part of Ted and Gayle Haggard's interview on Oprah yesterday and I found it funny. He said that checks in with someone everyplace he goes and when he leaves. Also said he no longer stays in hotels but in the houses of preachers. She is out pushing her book on why she stayed. All I can say is if Time Haggard feels he has to let everyone know where he is so he can withstand the temptation of male flesh then he is not cured! Also, after hearing him talk on Oprah yesterday I know that he is a flaming queen and would not be surprised he if he wears women s panties!
I find the wife staying rather sad. Is that denial or desperation to keep a family together (didn't see it). Is it really so important for them to believe it is "curable"? Consider it a sin if you must, but to delude oneself into curing it is beyond reason...
In a letter to his congregation Pastor Ted Haggard admitted he had sexual contact with a man. Haggard resigned all his ministerial duties and has submitted to a “restoration process” where zealous mindbenders are eager to remake him into an image with which they can be comfortable. He may even live out his days hammered on to the cross of fundamentalist conformity; believing wholeheartedly in his reformation.
No doubt it will take some time for the dust settle and the effects of Ted Haggard’s betrayal of his family, community, and especially himself, is absorbed. There is nothing more hidden from us than another human heart, and so we may never know the full story. By that I mean the story of an icon, pulverized back into the clay of a man.
In a statement read to his congregation Pastor Ted said, “…There’s a part of my life that is so repulsive and dark that I have been warring against it for all of my adult life.”
What Haggard seems not to understand is that he wars not against Satan, or evil but against his divinely crafted self, his personhood—and so, he must lose.
I don’t minimize the long term effects this episode will have on those around him; to those who loved him and on those who continue to do so. But to my mind the saddest part of Haggard’s agony is not that he was "found out", nor that he had suppressed his inner-self for so many years (agony enough, as anyone who has been there can testify). No, the saddest part of this tragedy is that this man, in his last letter to his congregation, demonstrated a clear kindness toward others in this crisis moment and yet in the same breath, expressed a self-loathing that truly overwhelms.
As I read the text of Pastor Ted’s letter it became clear to me that, for the moment please God, either he does not sense, or cannot, embrace the glorious truth that the Sanctifier who sanctifies him, loves him as he is; that the Redeemer who redeemed him, loves him as he is, and that the Creator who brought him forth out of nothing and made him in His own image, loves him with ferocious intensity. In the scheme of things nothing else matters.
I've never understood why any hetero person could believe that being gay is a choice. I'm straight, and I find the thought of a naked guy (even just seeing one) close to nauseatingly repulsive. I've known lots of gay guys, and they are just so inherently gay -- from the way they talk and walk and what they're interested in, etc. -- and that was obvious since they were quite young. Furthermore, being gay is difficult in today's society (even though it is probably better now than ever before). It just seems so obvious that being gay could not be a choice, but rather a fairly hard-wired part of a person.
It is really sad that the wife is so brain-washed by religion and controlled by her husband and her own sense of failure that she can't just admit the situation.
Like posted above, if you have to check in with people every day to battle your urges to suck the cock of every guy walking by then I think you are not "cured".
Lastly of course it is sad that even after being "out" he can't accept that as a liberating experience and embrace it. To live the rest of his life embarrassed about his own nature is tragic really -- he doesn't have to do that.
SplitDik (imported) wrote: Thu Jan 28, 2010 4:22 pm
I've never understood why any hetero person could believe that being gay is a choice. I'm straight, and I find the thought of a naked guy (even just seeing one) close to nauseatingly repulsive. I've known lots of gay guys, and they are just so inherently gay -- from the way they talk and walk and what they're interested in, etc. -- and that was obvious since they were quite young. Furthermore, being gay is difficult in today's society (even though it is probably better now than ever before). It just seems so obvious that being gay could not be a choice, but rather a fairly hard-wired part of a person.
I agree 100% with the way you put that. Since my divorce..or maybe a number of months before..I started watching/acquiring porn. I only watch girl-girl though. I just find naked guys a turn-off. Even those movies that are girl-girl, but there is a guy talking to them and telling them what to do. I've tried straight porn, and some she-male porn...just like girls on girls.
My point (long winded thought it is) being that I'm hard-wired to the female form and curves...I can't be "cured" anymore than I believe a gay male could be made to love women or lesbians to love men...its the brain.
SplitDik (imported) wrote: Thu Jan 28, 2010 4:22 pm
I've never understood why any hetero person could believe that being gay is a choice. I'm straight, and I find the thought of a naked guy (even just seeing one) close to nauseatingly repulsive.
This last weekend I was in Phoenix, AZ for the South West Leather Conference and they had three events that contained lots of male and female nudity, and I found myself looking at the ceiling an awful lot just trying to avoid naked woman. The worst one was a female who's boobs hung down past her belt line...it was gross. So I kept wondering back over to the few naked men and watching them the whole time
SplitDik (imported) wrote: Thu Jan 28, 2010 4:22 pm
I've never understood why any hetero person could believe that being gay is a choice...
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Over the length of my life I've grown more and more convinced that certain "straight" men do actually believe that gay men are predatory cocksuckers because they are unable to control their sex drive.
Let me say that a different way. I think that certain outspoken straight men lust so bad after every female that they cannot concieve of anyone not having that hot and heavy sex drive. So they firmly believe that all gay men are after them.
I knew a man at work who was married to a beautiful wife and he lusted after women I wouldn't sexually approach with the proverbial ten foot pole. I think a contemporary example might have been Bill Clinton who used to romance the chubbier girls because they were more appreciative and receptive than their thinner beauty queens. Now that requires a woman with an awful low self-image to fall for the line. But that's what I think this is all about. These guys are barely under control themselves and they attribute that lack to everyone else. It's "I am, therefore, you are too!" logic.
I might be wrong about this but that's what makes sense to me. Now I'm gay and I've been gay since puberty. I know that I look at all men sexually (in some way or another) but doing anything about that "look" is well under control and subject to common sense. I have thought about picking up guys in bars but that seems so cheap and tawdry to me that I don't do it for my own self-esteem. I consider myself a bit better than that and I don't make that as a judgment call about anyone else.
So I kept wondering back over to the few naked men and watching them the whole time 
Maybe he hasn't come to terms with the fact his hold life has been a lie. 
Ernie