Ted Haggard's media blitz around tonight's premiere of Alexandra Pelosi's HBO documentary, "The Trials of Ted Haggard," seems directed at portraying himself as the tormented, not the tormentor. There's no doubt that Haggard's fundamentalist upbringing created his internal turmoil over his sexuality, and the accompanying fear and repression that dictated his life. But Haggard also visited that turmoil upon others.
There are new revelations that the man who exposed Haggard in 2006, Mike Jones, was not the only object of Haggard's pent-up desires. And a Colorado television station is reporting that Haggard's former church, New Life, once considered one of the most thriving and politically powerful megachurches in the country, paid hush money to a 20-something congregant, Grant Haas, who says he was the target of unwanted advances from Haggard. The church denies the money was intended to keep the young man quiet, and was merely benevolence for a struggling parishioner ($180,000 worth). But tape-recorded phone calls between Haas and Haggard show Haggard's relief over Haas's deletion of hundreds of text messages he sent about sex, pornography, and drugs, and apparently over Haas's decision to keep quiet.
Haggard exploited that unique trust that exists between clergy and flock; his sin is not just the politicization of the Christian right's anti-gay bigotry, but exploiting his perch as the nation's most influential evangelical to exercise his political power. But that exploitation and politicization is not the reason he was expelled from evangelical power. He was expelled because being gay is fundamentalists' most unforgivable sin.
Back in 2007, I wrote in these pages that Haggard's fall from grace was, for his fellow evangelicals sitting in judgment, evidence that the dreaded "homosexual agenda" was powerful enough to recruit even the most devout, not evidence that sexuality is biological. This enables them to maintain their position that homosexuality is a sin that must be overcome and "cured" without looking inward at the pain they visited on Haggard, and he, in turn, on countless others.
Today, Haggard is trying valiantly to maintain the charade that he is not gay. Meanwhile, his fellow evangelicals, some of whom claim just as strenuously that they're not anti-gay, refuse to take a serious look at their own agenda. The National Association of Evangelicals, which Haggard used to lead, still insists that homosexuality is a "sin that, if persisted in, brings grave consequences in this life and excludes one from the Kingdom of God." While Haggard's upbringing in this environment in no way excuses his predatory and deceptive behavior, it's really no wonder Haggard lived in fear for his life and his soul.
The "new" or "centrist" evangelicals claim they want a "broader agenda" beyond "divisive" "culture war" battles over abortion or gay marriage. What they don't seem to understand is that by dodging serious discussion about their core beliefs about homosexuality, they're complicit in perpetuating the divisiveness they claim to eschew.
--Sarah Posner
