Ted Haggard Comes Closer to the Truth

We watched with cynical fascination a few years ago when megapreaching gay-basher Ted Haggard, president of the 30-million-member National Association of Evangelicals, was outted by a male prostitute who had been having sex-and-meth meetups with him. Haggard went through a series of logical contortions, he was clearly busted but had rationalizations and excuses like you wouldn't believe. No, I mean it, you really wouldn't believe them.

Now in an interview in GQ, Haggard seems to be a little closer to dealing with the truth. It is fascinating to watch him maintain his grip on denial even as truth relentlessly surrounds him.

The article is well written, there are a few surprises in the introductory section, but the insights come later, on a camping trip, when Haggard opens up with the author of the article.

He says that despite popular perception, he was never a right-wing power broker in the vein of Jerry Falwell. His reported weekly chats with George W. Bush were usually just briefings with low-level White House staff. He was never a homophobe, either, he says, and though he supported a 2006 amendment outlawing gay marriage in Colorado, he was also in favor of a ballot measure that would have extended domestic-partner benefits to same-sex couples.

When I start to ask about Mike Jones, the escort who exposed him, he cuts me off.

"We never had sex sex," he says, glancing at the car to make sure that Elliott and Jonathan are asleep. "I bought drugs and a massage from him, and he masturbated me at the end of it. That's it."

But Ted's true sore spot, the thing that drains the life from his voice, is the way he and Gayle were treated by their church in the wake of the scandal. "Here I was, feeling like I'd wasted my life," Ted says. "And they just sent me away."

When Ted resigned from New Life, a board of church-appointed overseers presented him with a separation agreement that required him to cut off all contact with members of the church, stay away from the media, perform no ministry-related work, and move his family out of Colorado. As severance, the church would provide fourteen months' salary for him and Gayle (about $200,000) and assorted other benefits. Ted obediently signed the agreement, but he now believes it was excessively harsh treatment for a family in the midst of a major crisis—especially since, well, isn't providing mercy for sinners sort of the entire point of Christianity?

"I used to think the church was the light of the world," Ted says. "But I've completely lost my faith in it."

Ted's complaints about New Life are old news to anyone who's been following his saga, but tonight, when I ask him if he really means to say completely, he stops and looks at the sky already starting to lighten.

"You've got to understand, Kevin, people are, at their cores, hateful," he says, rising to stamp out the fire's embers and go to bed. "I don't want to believe that, but the facts have prevailed over my idealism." The Last Temptation of Ted

I understand why he feels that people are hateful, but I disagree with his conclusion. Ted Haggard has spent a lot of time with hateful people. He was fine when he was on the haters' side, everything seemed fine, but once they turned on him he realized ... they're hateful. It is not a fact that "people are, at their cores, hateful." It may be a fact though that certain religious groups, including Haggard's, are hateful at the core. Sadly for him that's all he knows.

Oh, and he says he didn't have "sex sex" with the prostitute. Meaning what? Is anal sex the only kind of "sex sex" between two men, or is there something else? I have never thought it made sense to say someone masturbated someone else -- masturbation is when you stimulate yourself. I'm assuming the prostitute used his hand to stimulate Haggard to orgasm. Raise your hand if you agree that that is not "sex sex." <Looking around the room> Just as I expected. Dude is still in denial, obviously.

And before the rabble begin clamoring, Bill Clinton was just as full of it. He also had "sex sex," whether he says so or not.

Later in the piece comes this stunning exchange:

For the first time since we've met, Ted isn't looking directly at me. "Here's where I really am on this issue," he half whispers. "I think that probably, if I were 21 in this society, I would identify myself as a bisexual." After a weekend of Ted trying to convince me of his unambiguous devotion to his wife and kids, I'm at first too surprised to say anything.

"So why not now?" I ask finally.

"Because, Kevin, I'm 54, with children, with a belief system, and I can have enforced boundaries in my life. Just like you're a heterosexual but you don't have sex with every woman that you're attracted to, so I can be who I am and exclusively have sex with my wife and be perfectly satisfied."

"But what does it have to do with being 54?"

"Life!" he says. "We live an ordinary life."

It seems to be a fundamental misunderstanding of sexual orientation. Sexual orientation does not mean that you are irresistibly drawn to have sex with every member of whatever sex attracts you. That is entirely off the point in a sad way. The guy appears to be bisexual -- so what?

This is creepy in that "a crowd of people turned away, but I just had to look" way. It's like the person with the least insight into Ted Haggard's mind is Ted Haggard. And at the same time he is going around as a wise man, a spiritual leader, advising people on how to live their lives.

I'm sure it is a major step forward for Ted Haggard to say, "if I were 21 in this society, I would identify myself as a bisexual," he probably had to go through a lot of soul-searching to get to that point. He's making progress, he at least recognizes that bisexual people feel like him, sort of. But you don't have to be 21 to be bisexual. You don't have to have sex with anyone besides your spouse. A woman catches your eye, a man catches your eye, there's no harm in it.

You wonder if Ted Haggard will ever get to the point where he says, oh yeah, now I see, I'm bisexual, I am attracted sometimes to men, sometimes to women. You find yourself leaning forward expectantly, waiting for the words to come out, the obvious revelation that explains it all so simply. So far it does not seem he is capable of it. But he's getting so close.