No sympathy.

[solarbird]

At least some of the allegations are true. Andrew Sullivan says he "feels for" the Rev. Ted Haggard, former president of the National Association of Evangelicals and a major fundamentalist player behind the scenes in the culture wars. "This is what happens to a man psychologically and spiritually destroyed by actually advancing a lie he knows to be a lie about homosexuality as a "chosen lifestyle" while being gay himself." Andrew has some sympathy for Mr. Haggard.

Y'know what? I don't. I have no sympathy for Ted Haggard. None. It's because of people like him that I've had to spend my entire adult life fighting fundamentalist attempts to pass state and Federal law mandiating government discrimination against me - five citizen initiatives in the 1990s alone! It's because of people like Haggard that I watch a nonstop new-type blood libel propoganda machine crank out anti-queer smears of the filthiest kind every day, calling me and people like me violent, diseased, insane child rapists working to bring about the end of Western civilisation. It's because of him, and people like him. I better things I want to be doing with my life than spending hours and days every week just trying to beat back the theocratic hordes, and he's been leading them and rallying them on.

I am sick and tired of the closeted self-loathing evangelical queers using the sane rest of us as distractions for their followers and externalisations for their self-loathing. I am through with people like him ruining the lives of others to prop themselves up. It's wretched, vile, abusive, evil - I have as many words as you want for it, and still don't have as many as I think I need. I hope his followers tear him to shreads and leave him bleeding against a barbed wire fence in the middle of nowhere. I have lots of words for how I feel about people like him.

But what I do not have is sympathy. Of that, I have absolutely none.

Comments

[sistawendy.livejournal.com]

If you have to be a closet case, at least don't actively do harm. I'm hoping this is the first of many.

Apropos of nothing, I'll be chatting extensively with the Borg on Monday. Any advice?

[solarbird]

Yes. If he only damaged himself, I would have sympathy. He didn't. He actively worked to damage others - on a national scale. No sympathy.

[solarbird]

Oh right, advice. Aside from RUN? Yeah; think out loud. As you consider strategies to solve problems, speak them aloud, then if/when you dismiss them, say why, out loud. The whole "wanting to know your thought processes" thing is real, or at least used to be. You want to look clever in thinking about things, and competent with your tools; looking like you already have all the right answers isn't such a big deal.

[avram]

According to the Colorado Springs Gazette, Haggard has admitted to buying methamphetamine. He denies using it, and he still denies the sex parts of the accusation.

[loopback.livejournal.com]

That is an even less believable variation of the "I didn't inhale" defense than the original one.

Hands up everyone who thinks a massively homophobic anti-gay preacher would just HAPPEN to know a gay prostitute who was also a meth dealer (or had connections) so that he could buy $200 worth of Meth ... and then not use it.

perhaps this was his way of 'ministering' to try and bring people 'back to the flock'. gah.

[avram]

Oh, I'm sure that he's just fessing up to what he thinks is provable.

[solarbird]

Well, and massages, as agrumer found online.

[risu.livejournal.com]

Well, of course he didn't *use* it. He *transubstantiated* it.

[solarbird]

Papist.

Here we go!

[avram]

Oh ho! Now he's admitting that he received a "massage" from Jones, who he'd previously claimed he'd never met.

Re: Here we go!

[solarbird]

"I did not have sexual relations with that woman."

Re: Here we go!

[darthhellokitty.livejournal.com]

And this would be one of those internal massages using a penis, maybe?

[stickmaker.livejournal.com]

You should forgive him. It's the Christian thing to do and would confuse him no end.

[lisa-marli.livejournal.com]

It allowed started with St Paul (who was also probably a closet homo).
Believe me there is a special place in hell for these people. They will neither know nor see Jesus. And they will be mocked for their claims of such.
Hey, the straight ones have call girls on the side, why can't the gay ones have paid lovers on the side too?
And it should be noted that having sex outside of Marriage is one of the Top Ten! Being gay is down in the multitudinal things banned in the laws that include not eating lobster, not wearing a toupee on the Sabbath, etc...
Yeah, I think they are evil mean people. And I'm straight.
I just keep working on having my gay friends lead as normal a life as possible. Celebrating their marriages and kids. Helping them with the sadness of divorce, sickness, and death.
And voting against anything that keeps them from doing that like anyone else.