To whit, Ted Haggard seems to have cut the knees out from under my argument by supposedly confessing to "sexual immorality" -- which most everyone is interpreting as "sex with men".
Thus, do I think he's guilty? Yup.
Do I think, as I posited before, that the Democrats and the gay left are behind it? Yup.
Do I still think what happened was wrong? Emphatically yes.
Why?
Well, one of the things that's been most entertaining to watch is the feigned "compassion" for Haggard's family and Haggard himself coming from the people who were the first to throw every juicy bit of gossip onto the airwaves and blogwaves -- and justified what looks like an action of vengeance and hate worthy of Haggard himself by saying that he "attacked our families".
To me, that's sort of like a paparazzi photographer coming up to Princes William and Harry, saying "Sorry 'bout your mum"; it also confirms my suspicion that removing Huckleberry Finn from school reading lists was a bad idea.
The thing to keep in mind through all of this is that hypocrisy and misbehavior can be confronted without ever going anywhere near a microphone. It would have been a simple matter for Mike Jones to call and confront Haggard directly; that failing, he could easily have contacted Haggard's wife or Haggard's congregation. Ironically, in doing so, he would have most likely accomplished what he claims to care about -- ending Haggard's destructive behavior towards himself, his family, and his congregation -- with a minimum of harm to all parties involved.
But he didn't.
And why he did it is best explained, I think, by the estimable Mistress Mink, as published in Frontiers, whose column this week sums up the issue at hand:
Scumbags aside, Mink thinks people have the right to come out—or not—in their own time. Forcing their hand doesn’t foster any sense of community. Mink herself knows of a few unofficially gay actors whom her friends have dated, and she’s not about to put that into print. Not her business to. Because people have the right to live their lives as they wish—they even have a right to lie about their relationships. In L.A. the right to be inauthentic seems to be wildly flaunted anyhow.
Mostly Mink wonders why people are so interested in the private lives of strangers. What an enormous distraction this all is from our own lives, and the health and well-being of our community. Every time she sees a photo in the tabloids, Mink wonders what kind of nefarious stalkery was behind it. There are theories Mink entertains about this—we mere serfs use the media and paparazzi to leverage our class hatred of the rich and famous. And especially at the ones who most resemble ourselves.
Truer words are rarely spoken.
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