I’m glad Ted Haggard is in the news again because I like to say to people who fear the gays, “Can you see what homophobia does to people? It ruins them and it ruins lots of other people that you didn’t intend for your homophobia to ruin. Meanies! Stop being mean!”

If Ted Haggard (and his abuser) had been allowed to embrace his sexuality without fear, if he had been allowed to be who he was born to be (no, I don’t buy his assertion that the abuse made him do gay stuff when he turned 50. I believe he is gay and that’s why he likes to have sex with men), maybe he could have been the upstanding, thoughtful member of his community that he was meant to be as opposed to the shame-filled sexual predator with two lives: one as the respected pastor of a mega church with a lovely family, and the other as somebody who deceives his family and pays for gay sex and takes advantage of young men while condemning homosexuals for the lifestyle that he wishes he could lead. He’s gay, you guys. He pays for sex with men and that means something. Let me tell you, if I have money in my pocket, I spend it almost indiscriminately, but I would NOT pay those prices for something I did not love to do. So wouldn’t it be nice if he could just come out and come clean and get therapy for the abuse and begin to repair the damage that the deception and the homophobia has caused?

Ted Haggard was probably shunned and shamed as a little boy for not being exactly the same as the other little boys, and now he’s being shunned and shamed by his church family. He is still that little boy, struggling with his feelings and dealing with shame every single moment of every single day. And that is heartbreaking.

Here’s the lesson: Do you have a gay child? Do you know a gay child? Don’t blame it on his father. Don’t blame it on his mother. Don’t shame him into fitting into your idea of masculinity. Don’t talk about him all over your community as if he’s a freak that needs to be changed. Don’t be ignorant. Are you ignorant? Because it really sounds ignorant when you talk about a little boy with horror and disgust. Jesus wouldn’t like that.

Another lesson: Do you have a heterosexual child? Teach him to choose love over anger-breeding fear. Teach him that it’s ok to be gay. Teach him that it’s ok to be friends with kids who are gay. Teach him that it’s ok to stick up for kids who are being picked on for being gay. Teach your child about civil rights. Teach him that people who are gay are the same as people who aren’t gay. Jesus does not condone asshole-ishness. And hypocrites especially piss him off. Don’t teach your child to love Jesus and then teach him to hate certain people. Even if you think homosexuality is a choice, don’t hate people who choose different than you. That’s lame. Maybe if Ted Haggard had one little friend who stood up for him, he wouldn’t have had so much shame and wouldn’t have married and had 5 children and then ruined their lives with deception.

I wish I knew how to post a podcast on here because I would post This American Life episode 304: Heretics. Go listen to it. It’s free. And it might set you free. Listen to it. We could all use a little more Gospel of Inclusion in our lives.

I don’t think I said “shame” enough.

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