Haggard and the American Mind
I bet that last post had you believing that I'm fresh out of ideas for the blog. Wrong again. I just honestly thought it was worth sharing. (Which is, I admit, probably worse than being out of ideas.)
Before I head out to the night's work (which will involve leaving my apartment -- which I've already mentally vacated after just two months; don't move to New York, kids -- to do some reading, lots of editing, and some suppressing of a faint notion that I should be writing), I thought I'd share some thoughts on Ted Haggard. It's what every other blogger's been doing for the past 48 hours. I might as well catch up.
Before this week, I hadn't heard of Haggard. Or maybe I had, but the name didn't stick. Honestly, even now, I feel like all I can tell you is that he was the leader of one of those particularly scary groups of Christians (the kind I'm not defending around here when I start sounding friendly to religion), that he led this group in one of those aesthetically criminal churches that looks like a home for a semi-pro basketball team, and that he's probably nearing stage two of meth mouth. (Oh, please, don't click that last link. Really. I'm sorry I even put it up there.)
And now, he's been kicked out of his church, which has led to a message on his official site noting his dismissal and saying that the site is "in transition." (I'll say. "Come back soon, when Ted will be blogging live from the chillout tent.")
I recently told a friend that I didn't understand how one could vehemently defend President Clinton's behavior with a young intern and vehemently denounce Mark Foley's recent behavior, or vice versa. There were differences in the cases, for sure, but not so great that anything but political blindness could account for completely opposite reactions to them. (And yes, I'll italicize when I damn please.) Yet, of course, we got lots of opposite reaction from both sides of the aisle. U.S.A.!!
The case of Haggard is substantively different, of course, because he has used his pulpit to aggressively argue against the "sin" of homosexual behavior and even for legislation against it, which makes him not just self-loathing but pathologically hypocritical. Unsurprisingly, the church is already circling the wagons (sans Methy), and Haggard's secretive activities will allow his side to spin the whole episode as another sad example of how homosexuality causes dark, family- and self-destroying behavior, instead of coming to terms with the fact that no one is defending what he did, per se...just imagining what a world might be like where he didn't feel compelled to turn his self-hatred into a life that's one big lie.
It occurs to me, though, just now, that imagining a world like that assumes that social enlightenment on the issue would eradicate all cases of self-denial and shame. But there are clearly behaviors and needs that are widely embraced in the larger culture that still cause people to chastise themselves. If a hundred years from now, ninety-five percent of people view homosexuality as just an acceptable, naturally occurring percentage of sexual behavior, there will surely still be some who believe the received wisdom of certain books more than the wisdom of their own instincts. Human nature. Ain't it a bitch?
Before I head out to the night's work (which will involve leaving my apartment -- which I've already mentally vacated after just two months; don't move to New York, kids -- to do some reading, lots of editing, and some suppressing of a faint notion that I should be writing), I thought I'd share some thoughts on Ted Haggard. It's what every other blogger's been doing for the past 48 hours. I might as well catch up.
Before this week, I hadn't heard of Haggard. Or maybe I had, but the name didn't stick. Honestly, even now, I feel like all I can tell you is that he was the leader of one of those particularly scary groups of Christians (the kind I'm not defending around here when I start sounding friendly to religion), that he led this group in one of those aesthetically criminal churches that looks like a home for a semi-pro basketball team, and that he's probably nearing stage two of meth mouth. (Oh, please, don't click that last link. Really. I'm sorry I even put it up there.)
And now, he's been kicked out of his church, which has led to a message on his official site noting his dismissal and saying that the site is "in transition." (I'll say. "Come back soon, when Ted will be blogging live from the chillout tent.")
I recently told a friend that I didn't understand how one could vehemently defend President Clinton's behavior with a young intern and vehemently denounce Mark Foley's recent behavior, or vice versa. There were differences in the cases, for sure, but not so great that anything but political blindness could account for completely opposite reactions to them. (And yes, I'll italicize when I damn please.) Yet, of course, we got lots of opposite reaction from both sides of the aisle. U.S.A.!!
The case of Haggard is substantively different, of course, because he has used his pulpit to aggressively argue against the "sin" of homosexual behavior and even for legislation against it, which makes him not just self-loathing but pathologically hypocritical. Unsurprisingly, the church is already circling the wagons (sans Methy), and Haggard's secretive activities will allow his side to spin the whole episode as another sad example of how homosexuality causes dark, family- and self-destroying behavior, instead of coming to terms with the fact that no one is defending what he did, per se...just imagining what a world might be like where he didn't feel compelled to turn his self-hatred into a life that's one big lie.
It occurs to me, though, just now, that imagining a world like that assumes that social enlightenment on the issue would eradicate all cases of self-denial and shame. But there are clearly behaviors and needs that are widely embraced in the larger culture that still cause people to chastise themselves. If a hundred years from now, ninety-five percent of people view homosexuality as just an acceptable, naturally occurring percentage of sexual behavior, there will surely still be some who believe the received wisdom of certain books more than the wisdom of their own instincts. Human nature. Ain't it a bitch?
posted by JMW at 7:51 PM
1 Comments:
No comments to this insane comment of yours?!
"I recently told a friend that I didn't understand how one could vehemently defend President Clinton's behavior with a young intern and vehemently denounce Mark Foley's recent behavior, or vice versa. There were differences in the cases, for sure, but not so great that anything but political blindness could account for completely opposite reactions to them."
Are you out of your friggin' mind? There is a world of difference between pedophilia and a middle-aged man philandering with his tarty office assistant. If you seriously think these are remotely comparable, and that one doesn't deserve an enormous amount of disgust, versus the other deserving an eye-roll, you need to revisit what child abuse is all about. These are NIGHT and DAY different. And I'm not saying that because I want to defend Clinton's obviously terrible and unpresidential behavior, but because I'm appalled that you would even liken that overhyped affair to someone who is a child predator. There is indeed a difference, and I'm not the one who's being blind here.
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