The Haggard Story: Not Just Hypocrisy, But Lack of Self-Knowledge

JB

Because in our country homosexuality has long been viewed as deviant and sinful, many of these people do not disclose their sexual orientation to others, while others are not even willing to admit it to themselves.

Instead, like Ted Haggard, they view their sexual orientation as a sin and a moral failing that they must constantly struggle against.

In fact, the very presence of these desires, which they conceptualize as sinful urgings, confirms in their mind how dangerous homosexuality is. Precisely because they possess these feelings, they know how close every human being is to sin. And therefore it becomes all the more important to denounce it, to fight it, and to prevent it from undermining the country.

If you start from the assumption that homosexuality is sinful, and you know that you have deep and powerful feelings of attraction to persons of the same sex, how can you not believe that the Devil himself is perpetually waiting outside your doorstep? How can you not fear that the country is on the verge of sliding into moral bankruptcy, for you are always on the brink yourself. And indeed, in Haggard's case, you have repeatedly fallen, and you can't stop falling.

Many progressives have never quite understood why the most vehement religious opponents of homosexuality view it as such a threat. I myself have always assumed that it is because religious opponents are devoted to the preservation of traditional gender roles, which sustain a male/female hierarchy. But the Ted Haggard story suggests a different reason-- at least for that segment of religious opponents who, like a significant proportion of the population generally, share same-sex or bisexual orientations and desires.

Viewed from Ted Haggard's perspective-- a man who, despite his shame and guilt, is attracted to other men-- gay marriage and the gay lifestyle really are a threat to heterosexual relationships and heterosexual marriage. That is because they are a threat to his heterosexual identity and his heterosexual marriage. He knows the Devil is always tracking him, waiting for him to slip up. That is because he conceptualizes his sexual desires as sin and as alienation from God, and not as the expressions of something that might actually become valuable to him if accepted them as part of himself. If Haggard accepted that he was bi-sexual or even gay, and that it was morally permissible to be either of these things, he would have to change his understandings of his own desires and what they mean. He would have to view himself and his relationship to God very differently. But he has not been able to accept these things, because he is closeted from himself. That is why he has been a vocal opponent of people he has a great deal in common with.

I don't know how many of the fiercest opponents of gay rights in the religious community have some same-sex desires. I only know that it makes perfect sense that among the very religious those with same-sex desires will be among the most vehement denouncers of gays. It is not simply hypocrisy-- it is also lack of self-knowledge.

The Haggard story is a story not only about Haggard, but about America itself. Our country has not yet accepted that it is morally ok to be gay or bi-sexual, even though America has millions of gay and bi-sexual people who are our friends, co-workers, and family members; moreover, we are a country with many gay and bi-sexual people who themselves won't accept that it is morally ok to be gay or bi-sexual. Therefore we as a nation hate ourselves, fear ourselves, fight ourselves and try to banish ourselves from the face of the earth. It should be obvious enough that such a strategy is doomed to failure, but the real tragedy is how long-- and at what cost in human suffering-- it will take us to recognize it.