HAGGARD AND DRAWN (and Quartered) HYP! HYP! HYPOCRISY!

[Another old post from the soon to disappear Lion and Pen web site is this originally posted November 3, 2006]

I now offer for your delectation one Pastor Ted Haggard. Kind, smiling, Pastor Ted of the New Life Church adjacent to the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Pastor Ted who is a graduate of (where else?) Oral Roberts University founded by a man who made his fortune as a televangelist and tent show huckster pulling chicken livers from suffering rubes and claiming that god had just allowed him to draw out their cancers. Pastor Ted who believes, "The Holy Bible, and only the Bible, is the authoritative Word of God. It alone is the final authority for determining all doctrinal truths. In its original writing, the Bible is inspired, infallible and inerrant." He also believes that, "we don't have to debate about what we should think about homosexual activity, it's written in the Bible." Pastor Ted who was, until today, President of the National Association of Evangelicals and claims to have an identity of views with our Fearless Leader, Dubya, as well as having a long association with that pillar of traditional values, James Dobson of Focus on the Family. Yes, kind, smiling Pastor Ted, quick to condemn same-sex marriage and homosexuality seems to have been living in a world with a slight disconnect from our own...I mean apart from the half-assed fundamentalist world (forgive the tautology).

You see that one of the things that kept Pastor Ted smiling was his 3-year affair with a male prostitute from whom he also bought crystal meth. Now, we have to allow that Pastor Ted claims not to have used the crystal meth (only his teeth and brain cells know for sure!) but then he surely must still have it, mustn't he? Isn't that a lot like not inhaling? Or was he just doing an errand for his buddy, Dubya?

I do want to be clear here. If kind, smiling Pastor Ted is gay, I wish him well. It may have some ill effects on his wife and 5 children, but accepting his own sexual identity is generally a good thing. But pardon me while I roll on the floor and hold my sides that are about to split with laughter. Kind, smiling Pastor Ted hasn't much to dispute with his fellow fundamentalist hatemonger, Fred Phelps, when it comes to homosexuality. That he's been getting "massages" from a male "masseur" for the past 3 years just goes off the scale on the hypocrisy meter. This one is even more fun that watching Fox News make Mark Foley a Democrat! And, I'm sure that the fun is only starting as there are bound to be rousing statements from other icons of the cynical exploitation of religion and its unquestioning followers like Dobson, Ralph Reed, Pat Robertson, Gary Bauer, Chuck Colson and the rest of the "Jesus is a Nazi too" crowd.

The gag may be waving the flag
That began with a mystical hand
Hip hooray!
The American way
The world is a stage,
The stage is a world of entertainment - Howard Dietz (Arthur Schwartz - composer)

Oh, how I love it!

Give Me Those Old Time Family Values...First Reprise

Ah, yes! Larry Craig of Idaho. The poster child for the "I'm not gay, but what are you doing after you finish in that stall?" movement.

Neither he nor Ted Haggard are gay, pretty much in the same sense that neither Truman Capote nor Liberace were gay, except that they were "bachelors".

Let's get something out of the way here. There is nothing wrong with being in love with someone of the same sex. It's not my style, but I must say that when I run into gay couples, whether male or female, who clearly care for one another my first reaction is that they are lucky and I wish that I had a relationship as wonderful.

But there is definitely something wrong with vicious hypocrisy. There is something definitely wrong with the kind of hypocrisy that allows Larry Craig to support the discriminatory Federal Marriage Amendment to outlaw same-sex marriage and to support a filibuster of Federal legislation to declare gay bashing a hate crime and yet to have credible reports that he's been cruising for gay sex since college and throughout most of his career in Washington.

One of the red herrings that right-wing fanatics constantly toss at those who oppose them is that their opponents are "self-hating". Taken in the context of Larry Craig's gay bashing, that sounds a lot like what's called "projection" in psychiatry, doesn't it?

Give Me Those Old Time Family Values! It's Good Enough for...who?

It's like shooting decoys, isn't it?

There's Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla. 16^th Dist.), Duke Cunningham (R-Calif. 50^th Dist.), now Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) joining grand hypocrisy parade that includes Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, Jimmy Swaggert, Pastor Ted Haggard (who's now completely cured(R) of his homosexual tendencies and cocaine addiction), Henry Hyde who was still having “youthful indiscretions” when he was 41-years old, almost-House Speaker Bob Livingston (who now-Sen. Vitter replaced in the House), Newt Gingrich, Tom DeLay and a host of others.

I will be fair. We’ve had Wilbur Mills, Wayne Hays, Jim Traficant, Dan Rostenkowski, Gary Hart and William J. Clinton amongst others. But I do not recall any of them preaching as long, loud or ostentatiously about the sins of others as have the Republicans noted above.

Isn’t it more than a little hypocritical to rail against Hollywood while electing George Murphy, Ronald Reagan, Sonny Bono, Fred Grandy and Arnold Schwartzenegger to office? I can’t be the only one to have noticed that. Or how about derailing Nelson Rockefeller’s presidential candidacy because Republicans would never support a divorced man only to embrace Ronald Reagan and, more recently, Rudy Giuliani and Newt Gingrich?

There’s a story I’ve been telling for years to illustrate the difference between Democrat and Republican politicians. You see both of them will brazenly enter the church vestibule during the service and pry the poor box off the wall. As they’re trying to escape with the fruits of their theft the sexton and some men from the congregation give chase. They catch the Democrat and Republican thieves and drag them back to the church to display their shame to the congregation.

When the Democrat is so presented he’ll actually be ashamed. He’ll return the stolen money and even turn out his pockets to add his change to the haul that’s now in the hands of the congregation. The Democrat will confess his crime and accept his punishment. He will counsel troublesome children in the Sunday School on ways to avoid his failings, not just capture, and will wash dishes at every church supper for the next 6 months or more. He will show up for his penance regularly and on time.

The Republican, however, is a different creature entirely because he’s utterly devoid of shame. This captured Republican will break free of his captors and with great theatricality will throw himself on the altar. He will make a great show of begging for the forgiveness of god right there in the holy of holies. Then he’ll rise quickly, wipe away the crocodile tears and shove his way to the pulpit still clutching that poor box. He will then preach a sermon on how god has forgiven his sins and wants him to keep the money because, when he spends it in the saloon/brothel/casino/Internet porn site that he so vociferously decries, it will help the economy, improving the economy for every member of the congregation – so he claims – in ways that clothing the naked, feeding the hungry, giving drink to those who thirst, succoring the sick or imprisoned could never do. He will equate succor with suckers and, while the congregation stands there, gape-mouthed in amazement and confusion, he’ll slip away with the poor box.

Yes, they’re both thieves but I will gladly take the repentant thief over the self-righteous one any day. There’s far less hypocrisy in the former than in the latter.

If there is a god with a sense of humor I think it's he who gave us Larry Flynt.