Ted Haggard is Gay

The word "pathetic" is thrown around a lot, but most of the time, people don't really mean it. It could be interchanged with, perhaps, "ridiculous," or "feeble," or "laughable." But the leader of the National Association of Evangelicals, Ted Haggard's case is one where the word truly does apply. He is pathetic, in the sense that I can't help but look on him and feel a mixture of both revulsion and deep pity.

If you don't know who Ted Haggard is, he is probably the second-most influential Christian right leader in the United States (the most influential being James Dobson, head of Focus on the Family.) Haggard is (or was) the head of the National Association of Evangelicals, 30 million strong, an organization vociferiously opposed to gay rights, among other things.

There are so many pathetic things about this tale, it nearly exhausts my already taxed supply of pity. For example, this is a man who is so consumed by the self-loathing of internalized homophobia that he will admit to buying crystal meth (but not using it), but not to gay sex. The latter, for him, is clearly the greater crime.

The crystal meth part of the story actually makes sense. Sully explains better than I could (as he's had more experience with closeted types):

"It's what extremely conflicted and sometimes desperately lonely gay men resort to in order to facilitate their self-destruction, and leave behind any sexual inhibitions derived from crushing guilt."