Ted Haggard... Again!

Fact is, the saga of Ted Haggard continues its enduring fascination, for me.



And I do like this real, life opera.



So, is dear Ted not gay? Not homosexual? There should be some comparable stories from Larry Craig.



In Uganda? Well, as an update to the Kiwewesi stories, they fizzled out, the public got better current topics of gossip. Wonder how long it would take if Ssempa was...!



But, I am going back to Ted Haggard. Poor Ted.

As if Ted Haggard's downfall from respected homophobic preacher to gay prostitution john and drug user couldn't get worse, it has: Haggard's relationship with escort Mike Jones wasn't his only closeted same-sex relationship. Just in time to drum up more publicity for the HBO documentary The Trials of Ted Haggard comes word Haggard also had a relationship with an unnamed young male volunteer at New Life Church, where Pastor Ted once preached.

The matter was supposed to be kept secret, at least according to the agreement signed between Haggard's just-disclosed other lover and New Life Church in Colorado Springs. Shortly after Jones' allegations surfaced, the volunteer — then in his 20s — came forward to church officials and informed them of his "consensual" relationship with Haggard, 52, according to New Life's senior pastor Brady Boyd, who succeeded Haggard after he resigned. There is an "overwhelming pool of evidence" that shows an "inappropriate, consensual sexual relationship" that "went on for a long period of time … it wasn't a one-time act," Boyd tells the AP.

The story continues. So, Ted had a good long time relationship with another guy. Good for him, or maybe it is bad because he didnt (again) appreciate his sexuality.

A crime to ourselves, that one. We are gay. Not even religion will change our sexuality. For us to grow into good, old age when we are so convinced of our 'wrongness' is something that can be truly horrible. As is witnessed by poor Ted.

And the young man who is cementing the deal? Poor him too. But you will have to read the story to the end, here.

GayUganda

Homophobes

Are they realy haters? Is it just because they dont understand? Why do they feel so threatened by differences from the usual?

I read somewhere, (don’t remember where) that some of us seem to have an inborn fear of change. That ‘conservatism’ may actually be ‘in the blood’, so to say. Could it be true? That as a consequence of our evolution, we have internalized a resistance to change- yet change is a must. We are a very intelligent specie, us human beings. The need for adaptive change comes up against the need to maintain that which has worked for years. Most of us are wired, despite our intelligence, to resist change, however logical it is. Some are less so than others. And of course what drives us is the reality of our genetic makeup against the reality of our ever increasing knowledge and our capacity of intelligence.

Hmmmmmmmmm!

It is an interesting proposition to think of the guys who are so adamantly homophobic. Nsaba-Buturo. Ssempa. I love the lessons that Ted Haggard is giving all of us. He is bi, at least, more than likely homosexual. Has struggled with his sexuality. He cannot hide from his own intelligence, as he cannot hide from his sexuality.
But he lives in a world that seeks to deny his knowledge and his experience, as against what he thinks is his world. I don’t think we are through hearing from him. This former champion of conservatism, brought low by his own intelligence, and the sexuality that he has sought to run away from.

I digress. I was reading this article about how some ‘phobes were fighting a battle against trans-sexuals. Why, why do they believe it is a necessity to oppose anything which smacks of equality for the gay minority in our hetero dominated societies?

I am gay. But the constant harassment, to me, seems to be over the top. There are many causes in the world. Why does one choose to pursue one which seeks to deny rights for a minority? Why would it matter to me that a transwoman chooses to go into a public toilet for women?

I have inadvertently read up a bit on the homosexual hating literature. We call ourselves gay. They insist we are homosexuals. And, in such a tiny thing one can see the differences of opinion. Ssempa, bless him, is not very bright. Charismatic, without a doubt, but he shows such a huge knowledge gap that I think him more stupid than clever. He once stated that he did not hate homosexuals, but was totally against the ‘normalisation of homosexuals in society’. Translated, don’t hate the sinner, but hate the sin. And do all that you can to make the sinner feel that he and she is less than a person, while you piously admit to not hating them.

So, if a trans-woman uses a women’s public toilet, what would this do? It would be a tiny step in the normalization of sexualities other than heterosexuality. A very small step.
So, it necessitates an all out assault.

So, why do they do it? Here is the story. I really would love to know why I threaten a person like Ssempa so much. Or Nsaba-Buturo.

Florida's Transgender Bathroom Rule Angers Conservatives

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — A blond girl heads from a playground into a women's restroom. A scruffy man, lurking outside, darts in behind her. "Your City Commission Made This Legal," the words on the TV screen read.

The dark ad came from opponents of a gender identity provision added last year to the city's anti-discrimination ordinance, which now allows the city's roughly 100 transgender residents to use whichever restroom they're most comfortable using.

Foes want to repeal the new protection with a March 24 ballot measure that has divided Gainesville, a generally gay-friendly university city surrounded by staunchly conservative north Florida.

Those who support the transgender protections say their opponents are really unleashing a broader attack on the rights of gay, lesbian and transgender individuals in general.

The city commission approved the restroom provision by a 4-3 vote a year ago. Before the ink could dry, Bible-quoting opponents angrily began working for its repeal.

"You are trying to operate in a realm you do not have the authority to operate in," one pastor, George Brantley, told the commissioners.

The debate is expected to become noisier as the ballot nears with opponents resorting to more TV ads and campaigns pegged to such slogans as "Keep Men out of Women's Restrooms and vice versa."

Continued…





GayUganda

I love Ted Haggard.

Sincerely. The guy is not bad, err, for teaching how loving the evangelical church truly is to us gay human beings. He brings out all the contradictions so richly. Indeed, his is a story of love and betrayal.

Check it out below.

Ted Haggard is OK with gay marriage but not really

So was talking with Ted Haggard Friday for an upcoming story we're working on about a Jan. 29 Alexandra Pelosi HBO documentary on his rapid fall from grace after a gay sex and meth scandal. One day Haggard was a confidante of President Bush and head of a politically powerful national evangelical group that represented 30 million folks and the next he was social pariah -- banned from being a minister, unhirable and living out of U-Hauls. Getting nailed in a gay sex and meth scandal will do that to an evangelical Christian guy.

Suddenly, we're talking Prop 8 and gay marriage and it sounds like Ted doesn't have a problem with gay marriage. (He is still married to his wife of three decades. More on that later.) Key words: "sounds like." Bear with us because this takes a bit.

A key point in the doc is how conservative evangelical Christians -- the folks who often preach about loving the sinner but hating the sin -- literally banished Haggard from Colorado. "Exile" is how Haggard described it in the doc. "The church told me to go to hell." Nobody -- church or state -- will hire him, and he's now selling health insurance door-to-door. (He recently returned to his $700,000 home there, though.) Still, it's bleak. And for those of you who say, "He deserves it," Haggard replies, "They're right. I do."

In the film, he talks about how the church could have used his story as an example of how to preach forgiveness. But churches are a business, too, he said, and acknowledged that he was bad for biz. So how is the church blowing opportunities to reach out in other places?

"I think we're blowing it right here in California with the No. 1 way evangelical believers are communicating their belief are things like Prop. 8," Haggard told The Chronicle Friday.

"The gospel is so much better than trying to interface our personal commitments in scripture with civil law. We as Christians know that God hates divorce, and we don't want to be advocates of divorce, but we certainly aren't opposed to there being divorce laws for society. And believers use those divorce laws a lot. There are lots of things that are principles in Scripture that we need to be very thoughtful about whether or not they should be inculcated into civil law."

So are you saying that you're now for gay marriage?

"Prior to my crisis, I was for equality under the law no matter how people grouped. Whether it was two old spinsters living together or a homosexual couple or a heterosexual couple, I think it ought to be the same under the law. But prior to my crisis, I thought the word 'marriage,' I thought it was worth defending the definition of it -- the traditional definition of it, and I no longer believe that. I'm looking out a window right now and the steel in the frame is married to the glass. So marriage doesn't just mean the union between a man and a woman, it also means where two pieces of steel come together or where the curb meets the street, it marries the street."

Ted, that's too much metaphor. Do you think gays should be allowed to marry each other?

"I think the government should recognize the union between people whether they're gay or not in whatever the language they choose, whether they call it a marriage or a civil union, it's up to them. If the government is going to be in the business of recognizing people grouped together as couples, then they need to that across the board. It's a big change for me."

"It's not a change in my view of civil liberties. I've always believed this. It's a change in semantics. I'm saying prior to the crisis, I would defend marriage as the sacred term for the church to use for heterosexual monogamous couples. Now I've broadened that and said it's not worth having a war over the definition of a word. I believe that under civil law people should be respected. And it should be equality under the law. So either the government needs to get out of recognizing that couples are together and make everybody file the same tax returns, etc. Or they need to recognize all of them. I don't think it's wise for the government to separate based on what goes on in a person's bedroom."

Now, less than an hour after we spoke, an HBO publicity person called to say that Haggard wanted to be clear that he wasn't saying he was for gay marriage. Uh, OK. Sounds like we're playing semantical chicken.

I asked Haggard whether he has had any inappropriate sexual experiences since his "crisis."

"I have thoroughly discussed my sex life with my wife and my therapist," he said. "I am very pleased with where I am today and I am completely contented with my relationship with my wife."

And is she?

He laughed. "You'll have to ask her."

The Trials of Ted Haggard

Ex-gay Ted Haggard.

Closeted but proudly gay GayUganda.

So, should I condemn him, or just listen to his story? I embraced my sexuality. Ted Haggard rejected his sexuality. And lied about it. And was found out, and he tried to change it. So, is Ted Haggard still gay or not?

Sorry, he is not gay. Is he still homosexual?

Some excerpts from his ‘trials’. And my comments of course.

“In the film, by Nancy Pelosi's documentarian daughter Alexandra, Haggard says that he never claimed to be heterosexual and that he still struggles with homosexual impulses.”

Duh, I always thought he was homosexual. Even when he did not believe it. So is Larry Craig, who is definitely not gay…! No, too many of us have to pass through this thing. Happy are those who do so, and come out with their pride intact. Will Ssempa????

“Disgraced evangelical leader Ted Haggard says in a new documentary that he still struggles with his sexuality yet is committed to his marriage for the sake of his children.”

Good for him. But he is presuming that he cannot be homosexual and still love his children.

“Haggard talks about a lifelong battle with his sexuality”

It is humbling the number of ways we try to handle our sexuality. Lifelong battle? Gosh, wasn’t I lucky? Here is one guy who should have been a star of the X-gay movement. And he is a poster child for why their struggle with reality is doomed to fail. Thanks Haggard. For confirming what I knew, and what I would have feared was not true just because you knew that you were lying to me when you told me that it is not true.

“"The reason I kept my personal struggle a secret is because I feared that my friends would reject me, abandon me and kick me out, and the church would exile and excommunicate me. And that happened and more," he says.”

What can I truly say about that? That is the reason we come out, tell the world that we are gay, and fight for decency and our rights. We fear to come out, and punish ourselves, for life. And if it happens, we find out those who love to hate us in the name of their god.
Don’t worry, they were never true friends. They never realy loved you.

“Haggard moved his family to Arizona after the scandal and also lived in Texas. He re-emerged last month at a rural Illinois church, where he delivered guest sermons and said he was sexually abused as a second-grader.”

Ha, Ted, I am gay. I was never sexually abused as a child. Of course I know of many people who say their sexuality is a result of sexual abuse. I am not one of them. If it is not true, you are doing yourself a disfavor. Accept what you are.

“He now sells insurance and, in the documentary, says he isn't successful.
"At this stage in my life, I am a loser," he says.”

If you believe that Ted, you still have a long way to go. It is more likely than not that you will not listen to me. I am not a Christian. I am homosexual. Gay, and proud to be so. Maybe you should take the counsel of a guy who is Christian and gay, and confortable with his sexuality. I will refer you to him. Here, the Gay Ambassador. Anthony Venn-Brown on Wikipedia

"The Trials of Ted Haggard," directed by Alexandra Pelosi, daughter of U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, is set to air Jan. 29 on HBO. The Associated Press reported Wednesday that Haggard has agreed to promote the documentary.

So well, Ted

gug

To my friends

I am dedicating this post to my friends. All my friends, known and unknown, knowing and unknowing.

Writing this blog, I use the experiences of my life. My gay life. And I am ever talking about being gay, and being what I am, a Ugandan, an African. Yet I realise that many of my Ugandan friends simply do not know what I mean when I use some of these terms.

Sexual Orientation is what the scientists call our attraction to another sexually. One is most commonly attracted to those of the opposite sex. That is the heterosexual orientation. But one can be attracted to the same sex, the homosexual orientation. Or to both: bisexual.

I am a homosexual. I was born that way, far as I know. For a long time I denied it. I said and thought that it could not be true. Then I did accept it. Accepted that I was a homosexual, attracted to other men.

I am also gay.

Yes, one can be homosexual, and not gay. For example, Senator Craig insists he is not gay. Of course he is not. But there is a lot of evidence that he may be homosexual. Pastor Ted Haggard too.

To be gay or kuchu is to accept your sexual orientation. To accept that one is different. To go ahead and affirm that being homosexual does not decrease your worth as a human being.

I am gay. And I have taken it a step further. I have raised the rainbow flag, decided to embrace the struggle for equality of the gay community in my country. Uganda.

Once I did not think this way, but now I do. I am homosexual. Gay, and that does not make me any less a Ugandan. Or un-African. However much other people may insist that my sexual orientation is ‘un-African,’ ‘immoral’, ‘against culture’, that I learnt it from the decadent west.

Yet, I could have stopped at being homosexual. I could have accepted the majority view that because I was born homosexual, I am bad, less than human, a sinner, and worse.

I could have tried desperately to change. Doctors say it is impossible. I tried. There are many homosexuals who try to change. I am thankful I failed, and accepted myself. Some do not.

I could have walked the straight path. Gotten married. Had children. And maybe had my lovers on the side.

My lover believes in monogamy. He would not have accepted being on the sidelines. I know it happens a lot.

What actually started me off on this was this story. From Israel. Click the link and read it.

Guy like me. Homosexual. Took the straight path. Got married, 20 years! Had 4 sons, was an ultra-orthodox Jew. He tried his best to be straight, and failed. He got a lover, a male lover. But still he was not happy in his marriage.

He talked to his wife. Told her a partial truth; that he was transgender. Maybe to him it seemed a ‘lesser evil’. The lady took it well, but later, went on to seek a divorce. Marriage broken down.

The guy killed himself. His family was rejected by his community. Hypocrites, but then, that is society.

That could easily have been a script for my life. Because 95% of my country men disapprove of my sexuality.

But I cannot change my sexuality. Ssempa says that he can do that for me. I am a bit dubious of his claims. He is not a medical doctor. Maybe he is a witchdoctor.

I will not hide, because I am a man attracted to men, in Uganda.

I will say that I am me, a homosexual, a Ugandan, an African, and a human being.

I will pray desperately that my friends understand me. But I will not be less than what I am, because they disapprove.

GayUganda