Subscribe to Breaking NewsWithers: Please muzzle Ted Haggard
Shut-up! Shut-up! Shut-up! God, shut your toothy trap! How long is this Ted Haggard speaking tour going to go on? I’m an ardent fan of the First Amendment, but when it comes to Haggard I want to add a provision that keeps him from the public square for 25 years.
From Larry King to Oprah to morning TV shows, we’ve had Haggard reminding us of his sorry story. I understand he needs to make sure we all watch the HBO documentary about his post scandal life, but what is up with this guy? It’s like he grooves to the public flogging. Anyone who says the following line needs what both grandmas called a whippin’:
“People want you either to be heterosexual, bisexual, homosexual, whatever. And my counselor says I’m a heterosexual with complications, whatever that means.
If allowed to, I would take you on a curse filled tirade about that line, but I like working for 365 so use your imagination.
Ultimately, the whole Haggard tour has nothing to do with sexuality and everything to do with the former reverend being a simple fame whore. When he preached, he was adored and had a captive audience every week who hung on his every word. When that was taken away, the solitude was too deep and silent (the status most of us have as we spend our time on this spinning land mass), so he had to have the glare again. Junkie punk. And if it meant throwing out comments best reserved for a comic’s routine, then so be it. Do anything to get the crowd again.
Sexuality is not a black and white issue. I know that it is comforting to use absolutes like “gay” or “straight”, and the umbrella term “bisexual” for any who don’t fit into the other two boxes, but sexuality cannot be defined so simply.
I have a friend. He’s gay. For over a decade from the age of fourteen he was only with men. Then he fell in love with his best friend. A woman. He married her. He has a healthy sex life with her. He is still sexually attracted to men and is attracted to no women other than his wife.
Some people claim that he married her because he wanted a “beard”, because he was ashamed of his sexuality, but he freely admits to being gay. He and his wife even have similar tastes in men. He is not sexually attracted to women, but because he loves his wife so much he is attracted to her.
So what does that make him? Gay? Straight? Bi?
A friend of my cousin’s describes himself as straight. He has been married for almost five years. Last year he was arrested after he was caught by police receiving a blowjob from a man in a public toilet.
He says he’s not sexually attracted to men, but he likes oral sex, something his wife won’t give him, and the danger of having it in a public place. He also admits that receiving the blowjob from another man, another taboo, makes the experience even sexier, even though he says he’s not attracted to men.
So what is he? A closet case? A straight guy with unconventional sexual fantasies?
My point is that sexuality is a personal thing and we should resist the urge to label someone with an absolute when the reality is not so black and white. Only Ted Haggard knows if he’s gay, straight, bisexual or something else entirely. The only labels we can fairly use in reference to him are “hypocrite”, “nutjob”, “bore”, and “attention whore”.
Frankly, I don’t give a crap who he has sex with. He has been exposed as a hypocrite and a liar, and now should be allowed to crawl away under the slimy rock he came from.
Unfortunately, he seems to be clinging to the spotlight. He isn’t going to shut up, so all we can do is stop listening. The old saying doesn’t work in most cases, but when it comes to celebrity and people throwing themselves into the spotlight, if you ignore them they will, eventually, go away.
Ted Haggard in a leather jockstrap and a muzzle … now THAT’S the stuff of NIGHTMARES!
BWAHHHHHHHHHHHAHHHHHHHAHHHHHHHHHH!
Morgan, your attempt at humor might have worked if not for religious delusion being so ridiculous IT SHOULD get the response you satirized!
I feel sorry for the guy. He just aint there yet. He seems to be avoiding the 800 lbs gorilla in the room. He sees it in the corner of his eye. I HOPE TED, YOU come out and I Hope you start a Gay Ministry. For you know how dark, dank, and dismal that wretched closet is. If you can get your head out of (yourself} You could make up for the damage you caused. If you do, Ill be sure to be in the front pew.
He’s a trainwreck. He’s still more concerned with conforming to a rigid concept than being honest with and about himself. It’s sad, but it’s also tiresome. Haggard still lies to himself, and his wife is no better because she’s also denying reality. If either of them would really think about all the crap they’re talking, they’d also have the wisdom to shut the hell up with their foolishness and stop acting like a Jerry Springer spinoff.
While annoying it might be, it actually kinda helps the gay cause. The fact that he was having gay sex, while being the president of evangelicals and advising Bush. Him bring it back again and again must anger more the fanatic bigots that used to control him than any potential harm he might make about being not gay. He is a complete famewhore and I just love it everyday he talks about it. Taking his kids on tour with him (I actually feel bad for his kids, knowing and listening every day every detail about what your does in bed).
Sure Isaac, lets just throw in a lot more confusion than needs to be with you isolated examples. Being bisexual means that you have the capacity to love either a man or a woman and it seems your first friend you mention is bisexual. Lets not forget the Kinsey scale shall we.
“Sure Isaac, lets just throw in a lot more confusion than needs to be with you isolated examples. Being bisexual means that you have the capacity to love either a man or a woman and it seems your first friend you mention is bisexual. Lets not forget the Kinsey scale shall we.”
I’m sorry if you find it confusing, Aiden, but sexuality IS confusing. It is not black and white. It is possible for a straight person to love a person of the same sex, and for a gay person to fall in love with someone of the opposite sex, and you have no choice other than to agree unless you are saying that sex is the only reason people are together.
Sexuality determines who you will be SEXUALLY ATTRACTED to, not who you will fall in love with. If you are gay it means you are predisposed to being attracted to people of the same sex, not that you can only fall in love with someone of the same sex. Granted it is rare for a gay person to fall in love with someone of the opposite sex and spend the rest of their life with them happily, and even rarer for a straight person to fall for someone of the same sex, but it does happen.
Applying labels to people may make it easier for you to categorise them, to slip them into some neat little box, but you have to accept that with the exception of some absolutes the labels we apply to people do not always fit as comfortably as we might like them to.
My best friend’s parents happily applied the label “male” to their son, and considered it an absolute. “He” is now a big-breasted woman with a husband and, hopefully, a child soon, if the adoption goes through. Another friend, mentioned above, applied the label “gay” to himself from about the age of eleven. He knew he was attracted to men and couldn’t picture himself with a woman. He even mocked those gay men who married women, calling them “pathological closet cases”. He is now married to a woman. He is no less gay. He is not attracted to any other woman. He is, however, completely in love with her and they have a very healthy sex life. He would be offended if you tried to apply the label “bisexual” to him.
Part of the problem with society is that we get hung up on labels, on categorising people, and unfortunately people are more complex than we might like. Not all gay people are the same. Not all men are the same. Not all black people are the same. Not all Christians are the same. People are all different, and even if you find two people who use the same labels to describe themselves they won’t be the same.
I’m sorry if you find that confusing, but that’s life. And that’s sexuality. It isn’t black and white.
Mr Haggard clearly wants to apply the label “straight” to himself, and I’m sure he has done his best to live his life according to the rules associated with that label. In a way I pity him – it can’t be easy living your life with such self-hatred and confusion. It’s just a pity that he’s channeled that hatred towards the gay community – the people best equipped to help him through his confusion.
Oh well – sucks to be him.