I Love Ted Haggard
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.
January 28th, 2009 at 7:04 pm
This is my favorite Abby post ever. Thanks for always inspiring me from afar.
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January 28th, 2009 at 7:45 pm
“Teach him that it’s ok to stick up for kids who are being picked on for being gay” unless the bullies are really big and mean then teach him to grab the gay kid and run for their lives!LOL
joking aside…great post.
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January 28th, 2009 at 8:24 pm
This is what I kept telling my neighbors who were against gay marriage in California–gay marriage doesn’t KILL traditional families, it SAVES them.
We knew a very prominent man and leader in the community who was discovered to have been leading a double life when he was murdered by a male hooker when he was 85 years old. Another example of “What if he had been allowed to have a happy life with a man?”
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January 28th, 2009 at 11:27 pm
you’re my hero, Abby!
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January 29th, 2009 at 10:01 am
I hope Ted reads this, if so he may still have a chance. But really this one belongs in the pulpit, or as it is with these big money centers today, on a stage for all those gay hating Christians to hear. Hell just stand on the corner with a mega phone ’cause sooooo many, tooooo many people don’t except gay people, even their own family members. And I believe you could change a mind or 2! Go Abby!!
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January 29th, 2009 at 12:09 pm
I just love this post. I google shared it OF COURSE!!!
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January 29th, 2009 at 12:34 pm
I’m glad I have friends who aren’t meanies. Even those of you who I don’t know in real life. You’re all swell.
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January 29th, 2009 at 2:08 pm
Amen Sista!!!
Isn’t there enough things in the world to hate, do we really need to be hating on each other.
I work with a lady who wouldn’t eat at a restaurant in town because two lesbians owned it. She would actually say ignorant stuff like ” Who knows what they put in the food” or her big one was “I’m not giving “them” my hard earned money.” I work with about 6 people and on your birthday you get to pick the restaurant and everyone takes you out to eat and they pay. So of course every year on my Birthday i would pick that restaurant and not only make her give the Lesbians money for her meal, but she got to give them money for my meal too……..Eat it biotch….Unfortunately the restaurant closed down, but not because of people like her, they broke up and sold it.
They had the best food ever.
Awesome post!!!
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January 29th, 2009 at 8:21 pm
That’s my little sister!
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January 29th, 2009 at 8:22 pm
And Tracy is my wife!
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March 1st, 2009 at 2:49 pm
[...] love can obscure our instincts in wild and crazy ways. (And the book reminded me of Abby’s Ted Haggard post — one of my favorite posts of hers [...]
April 30th, 2009 at 10:30 am
[...] on the topic of reading people who say stuff better than I do, here’s one of my all time favorite blog posts ever. Again, when the shit hit the fan about Ted Haggard, I felt unsettled. Until I read [...]