World, Meet the Haggards...

For the past few days I've intended to write more about Ted Haggard - particularly after I read some excerpts from his "confessional letter" read to his congregation a day or two ago. Whatever feelings of sympathy I may have had developing in some small corner of my body dissipated instantly after reading about this latest Haggard-ism. Now I just sigh and feel a deep sadness.

One line in his letter really struck me. Haggard tells his followers: "There is a part of my life that is so repulsive and dark that I've been warring against it all of my adult life."

Repulsive.
Dark.

It's a long way down you still have to go, Ted Haggard.

However you choose to see it -- for the faithful, it's a lesson from God, for others, it's just a big, simple, smack on the head -- the preacher from Colorado had a chance to face his true self in the mirror, and he blinked. He turned away. From the "repulsive" image he saw in the glass. And when he turned away, he sought refuge in the closed minds of those who still trust him, the thousands of followers in Colorado and elsewhere - he told them: I am hideous. Pity me. I am repulsive. Throw a burlap bag over my head, but do not leave me behind.

Ted Haggard still wants to be part of the show, but it looks like he'll be content being an exhibit in the freak show, a lesson to be displayed to every Evangelical who wants to show their children: see, my child, this is what "darkness" looks like -- beware!

See, Ted is not only continuing to fool himself, he is not only choosing to continue the "war" against himself -- that would be just sad and pitiful. What makes it outrageous and criminal is that he is allowing his flock to avoid their own gaze as well. He is giving them the freak show they need so that they can look on in horror and then walk away, souls cleansed, filled with relief that at least they are pure and clean. Isn't that what the side shows in circuses of old were for? "But for the grace of God, there go I...."

Ted had (still has?) a chance to send a different message. And that is why my initial joy over this whole scandal is now turning to bitterness and anger. Because this man of the cloth is spitting in the face of the opportunity he has been handed. And he's helping a whole lot of people remain in the repulsive darkness with him. That is what is pissing me off.

And, like it or not, Colorado, America, Evangelicals -- Ted Haggard is ensuring that more and more men (and women) remain in the closet, and - in the worst cases - act out their frustrated sexual urgings on the innocent and the unsuspecting.

I used to not want to see as well. In fact, for many years, it was quite easy to deny what was right in front of me. I'll spare any reader here the "coming to God" section of coming out (the relief, the unburdening, the long exhale) -- but one nice by-product of finally admitting to oneself one's true self, is that you see so much more. You notice things that you blocked out before.

And one of the things I noticed was the huge number of others still languishing in the closet. In an instant, you see the anguished faces and darting eyes of the countless numbers of other Ted Haggards out there. And make no mistake, America, they are OUT there. Thousands of them.

They are at the YMCA. Accomplished, successful executives by day. In the gym, they are watching you, in the showers they are watching you. Then they go home to the wife.

They are on the subway, in the bus, at Starbucks, at Barnes & Noble. They make quick eye contact - searching for a response, then dart away, ashamed of their own attempt to find another, quickly retreating down the escalator to the magazine rack to... read up on the latest men's fitness trend?

They are priests, they are CEOs, they are actors, they are boy scout leaders, they are leading American evangelicals... And they all seem to have families and children that, they think, do not have a clue. And they may not have a clue. Or maybe they do, but they, like Ted Haggard, choose to avoid the mirror too.

An entire "ecosystem" of mutually reinforced denial. But they are there, America. And if you truly saw, truly noticed... well, surprise is not a strong enough word. I was blown away.

And they get to stay out there, almost unnoticed, because we all help. Why does Ted Haggard still wage a war against himself? Because he, like many of us, still believes that what he carries inside is an enemy.

Repulsive.
Dark.

The next time you're in a Barnes & Noble, watch for them. They are there. Lost, full of self-loathing, repulsed. And, today, as a lot of America votes to "protect marriage" against them -- they will be pushed back into the darkness for another day.

Thanks, Ted.