Scientific Distortion and Four Lies

November 14, 2008 by Pastor Dan.

In late October Wayne Besen of Truth Wins Out that another researcher has announced that the National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) “grossly and deliberately distorted” her research regarding sexual orientation. I have mentioned Besen’s own research and credentials in this blog several times, and his book Anything But Straight here).

Dr. Lisa Diamond, Associate professor of Psychology and Gender Studies at the University of Utah, is interviewed by Besen here (5 minute video).

Diamond also comments in the video interview about so-called “reparative therapy.” “The [reparative] therapists are saying, “We can change your orientation,’when in fact all of the data—all of the data suggest that that’s not the case.” She is also particularly blunt about the willful misuse of published scientific findings by organizations who rely on the public’s gullibility. 

“There are a lot of scientists who would say, ‘you know what? I just produce the data, and then how it’s used is not my problem.’ But I think knowing that we have a culture that actually treats scientific findings very seriously in terms of support for public policy, that would be inappropriate. We have to be very vocal about what constitutes an unscientific use of the data and, that’s why I think it’s important to speak out. … I’m pretty accustomed at this point to the fact that these sorts of distortions will occur. My hope is that by doing something like this we can hopefully have a more scientifically-literate society and consumer culture that will get better at recognizing distortions when they occur, and will not simply take the citation of a scientific paper as evidence that that paper has been appropriately used.”

Besen has another web site which is very helpful, www.respectmyresearch.org, which names the distorters of scientific research. Among them, says Besen, are Dr. James Dobson who heads Focus on the Family (a multi-million dollar power house of right-wing rhetoric) and Dr. Joseph Nicolosi, former president of NARTH. “Nicolosi recently stepped aside after a member of his “Scientific Advisory Board” penned an article for NARTH’s website that justified slavery.”

Alongside the willful distortion of scientific research, NARTH has been known to use pseudo-science to prop up its persuasions. Although entirely discredited for his unscientific science, the views of Dr. Paul Cameron still pop up in NARTH’s archives. For example, Dr. Ross Olson cites a Cameron winner, “Gay Foster Parents More Apt to Molest,” by Paul Cameron, Journal of the Family Research Institute, Vol. 17 No. 7, Nov 2002, ). According to Respect My Research, Cameron “was dropped from the American Psychological Association for his shoddy and anti-gay work, such as claiming mosquitoes spread AIDS and gay people should be exterminated.”

 

Cameron and Nicolosi

(A week ago, NARTH held a convention. For one view of that, see Daniel Gonzales’ article, “Hair You can Straighten, Gays Not So Much” in the Box Turtle Bulletin here.)

It is to easy to suppose that the right wing nuts are simply crazy. There is a chilling consistency to their logic, a consistency for which they keep finding ways to misuse information and scientific studies. The consistency is what I called the Four Lies.

A few years ago I started writing a longer paper—but the longer research required and longer hours at my day job stopped me from finishing it—about the Four Lies I see behind the right-wing manipulation of public attitudes and public policy about homosexuality. The Four Lies are these: that we are child molesters, that we “recruit”, that we “choose the gay life style, and that we can simply change. These are not merely misunderstandings, they are Lies.

Change is the underlying issue, because it implies that there is a “right choice” and a “wrong choice.” Sexual reactionaries have themselves convinced that the chose heterosexuality, and take credit for making the “right choice,” in spite of the fact that credible academic research has yet to find a cause of heterosexuality or homosexuality, and increasingly supports the idea that no one chooses his or her sexual orientation.

The screwball doctrine that people choose be lesbian or gay supports the idea that impressionable young children must be protected from our influence. They encourage the public to fear the “bad influence” we supposed exert on the young so that they will seek to control us. Homosexuality must never be “taught in the schools” for example — which figured prominently in the “Yes on 8″ television ads in California. Conservatives in the African-American community, during the same Proposition 8 battle, insisted that black people do not choose to be black, but that homosexuals choose to be homosexual, and thus ours is not a civil rights issue. For conservatives who buy this Lie, since homosexual behavior is a choice, then we deserve no protected status and no civil rights.

The Lie about child molestation—which has been responsibly refuted over and over—is that any kind of an “experience” between a homosexual and a young person could influence that young person to become homosexual, as if it is such an attractive “lifestyle” that impressionable kids would choose homosexuality the way some kids choose to join a gang or get their navels pierced or their biceps tattooed. The whole thesis of “reparative therapy” is to fix the supposed damage to a young person’s gender identity to keep him from slipping or jumping into “the gay lifestyle.” On the so-called “gay lifestyle,” see my brief article “Two Gay Lifestyles” here.

After a while, I get so tired of arguing for truth over b.s. that like many others I tend to just make jokes about them. For example, the reason that heterosexuals have children is that since they can’t recruit they have to reproduce. But making jokes does not make Lies and misinformed public opinion go away. The Yes on Proposition 8 victory is evidence of that.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

Posted in Lesbian/Gay Marriage, HIV and AIDS, LGBT Rights, Ex-Gay | Print | No Comments »

Shall we overcome? Part 1

November 18, 2007 by Pastor Dan.

All human beings are unique. Every body is different. Each of us has a unique life experience which results from what we have been given from birth onward (both our genes and our birth-family environment, etc.). Some are born to privilege, others in dire circumstances, some with physical challenges, others with extraordinary physical “good luck” — no genetic time bombs, etc.

The variety of human beings is endless. The stuff of literature, however, is fairly finite, and one of the recurring themes used by writers (whether novelists, essayists, or those who craft screen plays) is the story of someone who overcomes great difficulties or obstacles. For example, the heroic figure who rose out of poverty, or broke free of slavery, or overcame ignorance, racism, disease, handicaps, physical hardships — you name it.

In films, this “overcoming obstacles” is one of that limited number of story ideas. I had some fun with this in my earlier blog, “Everybody knows there are only five basic plots.”

It set me thinking whether we are so conditioned by popular literature and especially the movies that we have trouble with people who accept the circumstances they are in, rather than struggling against them and overcoming them. And I think of St. Paul’s advice, in 1 Corinthians 7, that “each of you lead the life that the Lord assigned, to which God called you.” He begins by talking about marriage, singleness and virginity, but when he comes to these verses (17–24) he also includes circumcision and slavery. Slaves, he counseled, should be willing to accept their enslaved condition, knowing that they are “free in the Lord.”

This is of course one of those passages that gets St. Paul in trouble with modernists, feminists, liberations, etc. But I have thought of this passage as it might be understood by lesbian and gay people — or for that matter, but transgender persons. Are we asked to accept the condition or circumstance in which we find ourselves, make the best of it, and just try to be spiritually free in the Lord even if we feel trapped in what life has dealt to us?

The story of transgender individuals tests this interpretation. Individuals who are born with a male body but perceive themselves to rightfully be female, or the other way around, suffer from gender dysphoria. There is a lot of debate right now about whether this or another label even belongs in the diagnostic manuals of mental health. But if we try to apply St. Paul’s advice — on a parallel track with being single or being married or being a slave, we would have to counsel a transgender person not to seek to change genders, through hormonal treatment or gender reassignment surgery. “Let each of you lead the life the Lord has assigned.”

But then what of the situation for those who discern themselves to be lesbian or gay? Shouldn’t we just accept the fact that we are homosexual, accept our sexual orientation as a given, as part of what life has dealt us?

The rub comes not within ourselves but from others, who weigh in with strong opinions about what it means to “accept.” Conservatives and fundamentalists quickly counsel a transgender person not to change genders but to accept their birth gender and to live (present themselves) as that gender, but take the opposite point of view on homosexuality. They do not believe that we should accept ourselves as gay or lesbian, and live the life “assigned” to us. The conservative would argue that being gay or lesbian was not “assigned” by the accidents or vagaries of human diversity, but chosen as a willful act of human disobedience and sin.

It makes for a fine, coherent systematic view for conservatives. The only problem is, it’s not particularly truthful. Most of us cannot remember choosing to be heterosexual or homosexual, and we don’t discern our sexual responsiveness (arousal, emotional attraction, and even love) as willful acts. We can suppress and stifle our true humanity and human experience—with enough social pressure and internalized shame brought about by the disapproval of others—but that is far from accepting our “condition” and claiming our “freedom in the Lord.” In fact, it’s quite telling that in the very same discussion in 1 Corinthians 7, St. Paul also advises those who are single “It is better to marry than to be aflame with passion.”

Taken as a whole, Paul’s advice is quite mixed. He strongly counsels those who are unmarried to remain unmarried and to accept their circumstances. He counsels the slave to remain content in his “condition” of enslavement. Yet he suggests that it is not a sin for the single person to marry after all, rather than to be aflame with passion. And he stops short of advising the slave that it’s not a sin to seek freedom rather than to be aflame with anger and resentment.

What rule would Paul give to a person who is lesbian or gay? Are we to be content with being lesbian or gay, and so go ahead and “lead the life that the Lord has assigned, to which God called you”? Or to attempt to remain celibate and abstinent, even if constantly aflame with passion? Or aflame with bitterness, loneliness and resentment?

Or as the conservative Christians insist, can a lesbian or gay man overcome the sexual orientation she or he has discerned, through great heroics and with great triumph. Conservatives want to believe the latter, because they have a whole “ex-gay”industry riding on it which they seek to protect from the ridicule of both the LGBT community and of health professionals.

I don’t think I’m through with this one, at all. I’ll get back to this.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

Posted in Hollywood, Bible & Interpretation, Fundamentalism, LGBT Christian, Coming Out, Ex-Gay | Print | No Comments »

Spiritual death, redemption and grace

September 22, 2007 by Pastor Dan.

Recently I’ve been to see Confessions of a Mormon Boy by Steven Fales. We’re trying to get a group together to go see it while it’s at the Elephant Lab Theatre in Hollywood (through September 30).

Mr. Fales’ true story is funny, sad, moving and in some ways overwhelming. It is fair to say that Fales is also a strong and capable actor, since in a solo performance he must keep his audience’s attention for 90 minutes. “Mormon Boy” never bores—or even slows down, for that matter. It will leave you laughing, gasping, crying, stunned.

 

Why the story is most compelling is that Fales was caught in the same web in which many other fundamentalists of other religious stripes have been caught. It might as easily be entitled “The Best Little Boy in the World.” It is a life that many of us might have lived, or actually lived.

But the darker side is what happens to Fales after he is expelled from his church, and his marriage crashes and burns. This too raises the usual existential questions for someone of faith who, discerning one’s sexuality, becomes unhinged from all the connections and supports of life-before-coming-out. “If anything and everything I do as a gay man is horrible and offensive to God, and I’m going to burn in hell for it anyway, then I might as well have the biggest fling I can.”

That absurdity has wrenched spirituality out of the hearts of so many LGBT people. Lives become pointless and aimless in an unchecked progression of promiscuity, alcohol and substance abuse, disease, cynicism and spiritual death. It might sound as if I am joining sides with Pat Robertson or James Dobson here, but the truth is, what causes the downward spiral for so many people is not being who they are: being lesbian or gay or whatever, it is society’s knee-jerk rejection, fear and phobia. Because of prejudice and bigotry, whole classes of people are thrust out, kept on society’s margins, until they find other ways to survive without respect or restraint.

I don’t believe, of course, that virtually any intimate sexual expression earns God’s wrath, just because of the gender of one’s partner, any more than I would say “anything goes” is just fine. It falls to each of us to work out our own ethics in regards to sexuality, so that our sexuality is integrated in our whole lives in healthy ways. Fales’ story can be described as a tale of “fall and redemption.” What makes it most compelling is that it is a true story, and his own redemption is not a dramatic device. He teaches us a lesson for life from his own life education.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

Posted in Fundamentalism, Hollywood, Ecumenical Issues, LGBT Christian, Faith, Coming Out, Spirituality, Ex-Gay | Print | No Comments »

Evangelical demagogues: two down, two to go!

September 11, 2007 by Pastor Dan.

After writing about the death of Rev. D. James Kennedy yesterday, I begun musing about the passing of the generation of homophobic evangelical leaders. Two of the four heavy hitting homophobes are left: Pat Robertson and James Dobson. Robertson renounced his ministerial status in order to run for President in 1988. Dobson is not and never has been a Christian minister of any kind. Yet the two control much of what America hears about the Christian faith.

Although Robertson is on record with the most outlandish views about virtually everything in the world (examples:  in 2005 he publicly called for the United States to assassinate Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez; in 2001 he concurred with Falwell that the September 11 attack by Saudi terrorists wa brought on by the ACLU, feminists, abortionists and homosexuals with God’s permission), James Dobson is probably the scarier of the two surviving septuagenarians. He sounds more reasonable to middle Americans and conservative Christians. Dobson is a licensed psychologist, not a minister, but comes from a long line of ordained Nazarenes. (The current Wikipedia article on him seems to be balanced.) Backed by a $150 million annual budget (nearly twice that of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America’s $82 million), Dobson runs a veritable publication and broadcast empire to disseminate his opinions.

Because of his unfettered access to Republican leaders and to broadcast media, he pontificates on virtually everything in American society, including whom he would support for President of the United States. How does he keep his tax exempt status? See, for example, this article in Reason Online from last May in which columnist Jeff Taylor calls Dobson a “small tent Republican.”

(Dobson, you will remember, was once the employer of John Paulk, the “ex-gay” poster-child who, with an “ex-Lesbian” wife at home, backslid his the way into a well-known homosexual bar in Washington, DC., was photographed by TWO’s Wayne Besen and, after this hit the media was finally pushed out of Focus on the Family’s employment.)

Dobson has also espoused views that border on the edge of incredulity, such as saying two years ago on his radio broadcast that legalizing same-gender marriage would set the table for polygamy, lead to daddies marrying little girls and a man marrying his donkey. (That idea from Dobson at least might be a good idea, since it would mean that human beings of similar intelligence would not have to be born out of wedlock.) According to this, Dobson has said: “Homosexuals are not monogamous. They want to destroy the institution of marriage. It will destroy marriage. It will destroy Earth. ”

 

In his own words: http://mediamatters.org/static/audio/dobson-200510070004.mp3

His thesis (in his book Marriage Under Fire) is that when a judge may rule on the basis of civil rights, it is a flimsier ground on which to base marriage than what Dobson gives as it’s historic grounds: tradition, legal precedent, theology and an overwhelming support of the people. In short, He doesn’t know the history of marriage, let alone Christian marriage and, IMHO, doesn’t want to or need to.  In fact, James Dobson is not qualified as a historian, lawyer, thoelogian or public pollster, yet he uses his non-profit pulpit, Focus on the Family, to take aim against our rights, our relationships, our lives.

But if you really want to be scared, read John W. Whitehead’s interview of Chris Hedges, “Is the Christian Right a Fascist Movement?” You thought you knew how bad it was, but Hedges will show you it is far worse than any of us imagined.                                  

— Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

Posted in LGBT Rights, Ecumenical Issues, History, Public Affairs, Ex-Gay, ELCA | Print | No Comments »

Men’s Room behavior: excuses, punishment and prayers

August 30, 2007 by Pastor Dan.

Wayne Besen, who is an experienced, very thoughtful writer on public affairs, and author of Anything But Straight about the ex-gay phenomenon, has already convicted Senator Larry Craig in his commentary, “Looking for Love on the Sly.” (Read it now, because his column at www.365gay.com is apparently not archived.) He assumes that Craig was in fact cruising for a momentary sexual hook-up, and goes on to ask bluntly:

“How many of these incidents will it take before America realizes that the family values crowd is a big, fat fraud? They are a batch of moralizing molesters, pious pervs, closeted creeps and values voyeurs. It is time the right just closes shop and stops pointing fingers - because we have no idea where those sticky fingers have been.”

Yesterday I had several conversations with parishioners about the Senator Craig episode, after posting my views two days ago.  Some felt it was a pathetic example of hypocrisy (and so personally convicted him without a trial).

 

A portion of the police report about Senator Craig’s lewd conduct

One spoke very intelligently about police “entrapment” – what this undercover officer does is within the law but catches people in such a way that, although they are not necessarily “innocent” it still destroys careers, families, and lives. If such undercover operations are meant to protect public morals, even what is within the law for a vice officer to do, in this person’s opinion, it is a punishment out of proportion to the “crime.”

Besen’s truthful observation is that “one has to be quite desperate and pathetic to try to find his man in the can —especially with the advent of the Internet, which can deliver a pick-up faster than a pizza.”

I never got my own point made last night, that regarding this particular public restroom where Senator Craig was arrested, there had been complaints about sexual solicitation. The room has a reputation. Therefore the officer assigned had a duty. In other words, it was not the officer’s own initiative to go and try to catch some homosexual for the sport of it.

Over potluck dinner, more opinions emerged from other parishioners. One gay man simply named Senator Craig as worthy of our prayers. We pray for all manner of things and diversity of people before our Bible Study. I don’t remember ever before being asked to pray for someone arrested in a men’s room trap.

But I guess even my commenting about Senator Craig implies a prayerful concern: for him and his family; for social conservatives and liberals and radicals; for all who have suffered irreparable harm because of public morality yoked with private hypocrisy; for all people who cannot face their inner conflicts, and for those whose inner conflicts lead to inappropriate, embarrassing and even criminal behaviors. God, have mercy.

Will Senator Larry Craig run for re-election in November 2008? He has a strongly conservative base in Idaho. He has supported the Federal Marriage Amendment, argued against federal hate crimes legislation adding protection for LGBT people. He backed Idaho’s anti-gay marriage amendment. According to the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, Senator Craig has even refused to promise that his own office would not discriminate against LGBT people.

Whether he runs again partly will depend on how his version of the men’s room scene (his excuses) play out within the United States Senate.

Will the Senate’s ethics review process help him sweep the whole thing under the rug? Or are Senate Republicans concerned enough about their corporate survival in the next election that he will be encouraged to step down now so another Republican can fill his shoes quickly, before this incident becomes yet another campaign issue for which the whole party must answer?

According to Daily Quote, Benjamin Franklin (1706 – 1790) has said “He that is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else.”

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

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A wonderful solution to an icky problem.

July 31, 2007 by Pastor Dan.

The focus on the “cause” of homosexuality has created an industry of cure. The Ex-Gay movement is still here because it seems like a wonderful solution to an icky problem.

But, as long as heterosexual people are determined to follow a preconceived mental outline, they will force its logic to a conclusion that supports their determination. This an be outlined quite plainly:

1. There is something terribly wrong with homosexuality.
2. When something is wrong, there must be a reason or cause that normal sexuality “went wrong.”
3. If it can be found what went wrong, then a way to fix it can be found.

In response to this logic, organizations that operate “ex-gay” ministries have created a formula, a service, an entire industry that is geared to working with people who are unhappy with being homosexual, or are motivated to change. Most often, however, the unhappiness and motivation are the result of family and societal pressures to be heterosexual, “appear” to be heterosexual, or at least behave heterosexually in a heterosexual world. The emphasis on the “fix” in these ministries is an emphasis which firmly believes that sexual behavior can be successfully re-directed. In some cases, leaders will quietly admit that an inner change of sexual orientation may not or does not happen.

Typically, however, young people who come to these “ex-gay” therapy operations do not come because they are unhappy or motivated to change, but because their parents or families are unhappy or highly motivated to change them.

It is often said that a sweater is what a child puts on when the child’s mother is cold! The pressure on young people to conform comes not only from peers but from parents. As more and more people come out to their peers and families, peer pressure to be heterosexual is literally disappearing. But parental pressure is another thing.

Wayne Besen, in his preface to Anything But Straight (p. xii.) tells the story of coming out to his own parents. His mother bought a motivational tape for him titled “Gay and Unhappy” which, he said, tried to create a problem in his relationship with his parents as a cause for what made him gay, only that didn’t really exist.

The problem was, I always had a very close relationship with my parents—at least until I came out. I listened to the tape twice and realize that there was absolutely nothing in it that applied to my life. It was trying to establish a cause and effect relationship that did not exist. It actually seemed like the tape was trying to create a wedge between my parents and me by having me manufacture a traumatic event from my past that did not actually occur.

Besen describes the scene at the breakfast table the next morning, after listening to the tape twice and trying for the third time.

So, how did it go with the tape last night?” my father keenly asked while my mother’s eyes glowed with anticipation. “Dad, it was great. All I’ve got to do to become straight, according to the tape, is figure out when you and Mom became lousy, distant parents.”  That was the last subliminal ex-gay tape they bought me.

The opposing point of view is highly threatening to this preconceived scenario or outline, because it undermines the cause.

1. Homosexuality exists in all kinds of people from all backgrounds, with all experiences, in every kind of expression imaginable.
2. There is no evidence that homosexuality is “caused” by some genetic or hormonal flaw, by trauma, seduction, poor parenting or deep psychological or relational problems, or as a result of bad moral and ethical choices.
3. If there is no certain “cause” of any kind, there is no particular cure either.

In fact, if the whole question of “cause” is laid to rest, then the issues of “cure” and “change” simply evaporate.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

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What keeps the homophobic machine rolling.

July 27, 2007 by Pastor Dan.

linch pin –noun

1. a pin inserted through the end of an axletree to keep the wheel on.

2. something that holds the various elements of a complicated structure together. Example: “The monarchy was the linchpin of the nation’s traditions and society.” Also, lynchpin.

[Origin: 1350–1400; unexplained alter. of ME lynspin, equiv. to lyns, OE lynis axle-pin (c. G Lünse) + pin pin]

This word came to me as I look at the homophobia in cdhurch and society. Week after week I marvel at the constant hatred and bigotry which bubble out of the right wingnuts of our society. There is such determination, authority, and financial backing for homophobia and its political right-wing agenda. Why?

A linchpin is the pin through the end of an axle to keep the wheel from slipping off. So the linchpin which keeps the wheels of the Religious Right turning, rather than slipping off and falling flat, is whatever it takes to complete their agenda.

And it seems to me that the linchpin of the socio-political agenda to deprive lesbian/gay, bisexual and transgender people of their rights, their voice, their dignity and safety is the whole “ex-gay” apparatus.

Most of us who have looked at these issues for more than a moment can see right through the “ex-gay” thing. It is contrived, ill-conceived, hiding behind a mask of voodoo science. But it is a linch-pin. As long as the well-funded religious right goes on insisting that gay and lesbian people have a choice — that their sexuality is not innate but chosen — and as long as they wave the thread-bare flag of “change” (i.e., get therapy, repent, quit the “lifestyle”), they can convince the rest of society that LGBT people do not deserve “special rights,” protection from hate crimes, or even civility and respect.

 

Wayne Besen has written extensively about the myths and lies of the “ex-gay” phenomenon. His book Anything But Straight [Harrington Park Press, 2003] is a must-read. Besen is the executive behind TWO: Truth Wins Out, and runs a list serve and posted daily news commentary here on the subject of the lies and myths which perpetuate homophobic bigotry, crime and political manipulation. Anything But Straight will leave you laughing, crying and gasping at how the willful right-wing political plan to deceive the American people with absolute lies and myths can keep on going when it should have fallen flat — all because of a linch-pin holding things together.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

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It’s just more of the shame.

December 21, 2006 by Pastor Dan.

Jesus told a parable about two sons. One said, “I go, sir.” The other refused. But their behavior was a total flip-flop.

“What do you think? A man had two sons; he went to the first and said,‘Son, go and work in the vineyard today.’ He answered,‘I will not’; but later he changed his mind and went. The father went to the second and said the same; and he answered,‘I go, sir’; but he did not go. Which of the two did the will of his father?” They said, “The first.” Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you. For John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him; and even after you saw it, you did not change your minds and believe him.” – Matthew 21:28–32There is more than a passing resemblance between this parable and the sexuality issues and wars being slugged out in Christian denominations and American society. The strict moralism of Christian fundamentalism is on one end of the spectrum. The refusnik posture of those who cannot, or will not, comply with restrictive church policies represents the other end of the spectrum.A lot of ink has been pressed over the decline and fall of the Rev. Teg Haggard. The pastor of a 14,000-member Colorado congregation and president of the National Association of Evangelicals (representing churches with 30 million members) was publicly exposed as a regular customer of a homosexual escort (male prostitute) in early November. Rev. Haggard immediately denied the allegations, then partly admitted to some of them. But after being summarily fired by the overseer Board of his congregation, Haggard admitted much more: “I am a deceiver and a liar. There is a part of my life that is so repulsive and dark that I’ve been warring against it all of my adult life,” he wrote in a confessional letter to his congregation.The confession in and of itself is not news in this day and age. Rev. Haggard admits to “warring against” or struggling against “desires that were contrary to everything I believe and teach.”

Whether struggling with or struggling against, millions of gay people could confess to having “been there, done that.” The war or struggle takes many different forms, however:

the struggle to accept oneself as a gay or lesbian person and live out one’s life with integrity;the struggle to conceal one’s actual sexual behavior behind a facade of conventional heterosexual decency;the struggle to discern the will of God in matters about which the Scriptures are somewhat ambiguous;

the struggle to gain sympathy and understanding of one’s life situation, character, values, relationships–in other words the struggle to change other people’s minds;

the struggle to get justice and have access to ordinary civil rights guaranteed by constitutions, laws and courts.

What makes the Haggard case more newsworthy is that this man has been one of the most vocal opponents of gay people in the Christian evangelical scene. Haggard’s record on many issues is quite public. The other of several books, Haggard has been featured in many publications. One year ago, Christianity Today published a 3,500 word positive article about him: “Good Morning, Evangelicals! Meet Ted Haggard the NAE’s optimistic champion of ecumenical evangelism and free-market faith” by Tim Stafford (November 2005). Especially as president of the National Association of Evangelicals, he has had the ear of the White House, phoning in for a conference call there every week. He has been outspoken against the efforts of gay/lesbian people to secure civil and legal rights, to be accepted as human beings, and to be welcomed into the church as fellow people of faith.Now revealed, we see that Rev. Haggard’s personal war was being fought publicly. Where he failed to win any victories over himself, he substituted highly vocal and public battles and skirmishes against what he considered “an affront to God.”Much of Ted Haggard’s struggle can be seen as “denial.” In the words of one of the founders of Exodus International, “denial is the sincere belief in something that is not true.”

In Rev. Haggard’s case, what is it that is not true? The evangelical message is that homosexuality is not necessarily a struggle: You repent. You turn to God in prayer. You get therapy. You change. You choose homosexuality instead of choosing homosexuality.

“I go, sir.” Haggard is emblematic of the simplistic, rigid absolutism of evangelical Christianity. They are intransigent in their belief that every word of the Bible is literally true, that God requires heterosexuality for salvation, that sexuality is a matter of choice, not orientation, and that if one is truly born again / truly loves God / is truly a Christian, you will not be gay. Haggard and his friends preach obedience, blind faith, rigid conformity to a conventional code of morality which they believe can clearly and indisputably be derived, word for word, from the pages of the Bible. Haggard and his ilk preach hell and damnation for anyone who does not obey this strict code of sexual morality.

The real struggle is one of integrity. Who has it? The one who says, “I go, sir,” but does not? Or the one who declines, but does the will of God above?

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