The Strange Case of Ted Haggard

Ted Haggard was a powerful Baptist minister, president of the National Association of Evangelicals, he was an anti-gay homosexual. His story came to light when a gay prostitute squealed on him. Turns out Ted was visiting this guy, doing meth, and when the guy realized how dangerously anti-gay Haggard was he went to the press.

It is bizarre and amazing now to watch Ted Haggard squirm, trying to be both gay and anti-gay, trying to win sympathy points while at the same time denigrating the gay population, of which he is a member. The AP caught up with him recently.

Speaking out two years after being embroiled in a gay sex scandal, former evangelical pastor Ted Haggard said Friday his sexual identity is complex and can't be put into "stereotypical boxes," but that his relationship with his wife is stronger than ever.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Haggard did not rule out a return to public life or the pulpit. He spoke before he appeared before TV critics in Los Angeles to promote "The Trials of Ted Haggard," an HBO documentary on Haggard's exile after his confession to "sexual immorality" and fall as a top evangelical leader.

"I am guilty. I am responsible," Haggard, 52, said Friday in a phone interview. "I got off track, and I am deeply sorry and I repent ... I'm moving along in a positive direction." Pastor in gay scandal: I'm back from 'wilderness'

A positive direction would be to come out to his congregation and tell them, gay people are just people, like me. We don't choose to be the way we are, we just are, and you need to learn to accept us as the caring and loving and fallible human beings that we are.

Haggard resigned as president of the 30 million-member National Association of Evangelicals and was fired from the 14,000-member New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Colo., in November 2006 amid allegations that he paid a male prostitute for sex and used methamphetamine.

In a written apology at the time, Haggard confessed to a long battle against feelings contrary to his beliefs and admitted buying the drugs but said he never used them.

During a guest sermon last November at a friend's church in Illinois, Haggard said a co-worker of his father molested him when he was 7, an experience that "started to produce fruit" later. Clarifying that Friday, Haggard said: "I'm certainly not saying that because of that, I did this. I did what I did by my choice, and I'm responsible for it."

And with these words he conveys to his millions of followers that gay people choose to be who they are. Haggard visited that particular gay prostitute by choice, perhaps, but he was driven by forces that he could not resist. He needed the love of a man, not by choice but because that's the way he is.

It is not clear to me whether he is backing off blaming his pedophile father for his sexual orientation. He seems to be holding that escape valve open, as if he did what he did by choice, but only because his father had molested him as a child. Again, misleading his followers about the roots of sexual orientation.

Haggard said he isn't qualified to judge what factors into one's sexuality, but still believes it's "God's perfect plan" for marriage to be between a man and woman.

"I think sexuality is confusing and complex," Haggard said. "I am totally completely satisfied with the relationship with my wife now, but I went through a wandering in the wilderness time, and I just thank God I'm on the other side of that."

Asked whether he could define his sexual identity, Haggard said: "The stereotypical boxes don't work for me. My story's got some gray areas in it. And, of course, I'm sad about that but it's the reality."

So maybe the guy's bisexual. As MCPS students learn, that is one of the three kinds of sexual orientation, you are attracted to both males and females. It's not something you choose, it's just how you are.

As for God's perfect plan, I'm sure in His plan everybody is good-looking, prosperous, and intelligent, but that isn't how the reality works out. In God's real world, you are dealt a hand and you play it out, you make the most of it. Ted Haggard has been given an incredible opportunity here to enlighten people, be generate understanding and spread love through the world, and he is using God's name to fail.

The stereotypical boxes don't work for anybody, and I don't just mean sexual orientation but everything. We are not a world of Rambos and Barbies. Ted Haggard is not some weird out-of-the-box exception to the stereotype, he is the stereotype, the confused, self-denying gay man in the closet. The problem is not being gay, or even being in the closet, the problem is the stereotypes -- both the stereotype of the gay man and the stereotype of "God's perfect plan."

We have watched this story unfold in parallel to our MoCo battle over the school sex-ed curriculum and our county's battle over a law that protects transgender people from discrimination. Ted Haggard was dragged kicking and screaming out of the closet, he went away for some kind of counseling, and if you remember, after two weeks he was declared "entirely heterosexual." Now he is saying he doesn't fit into the usual boxes, but of course he is just a regular person with homosexual feelings, there are millions like him, including millions who deny it like he does. He needs to take the next step and forgive himself, accept himself, and defend others who are like him.