Much like the Mark Foley stuff, it is somehow hard for me to discuss the gay outing of Christian Right evangelical leader Ted Haggard.
At first, sure, I thought: "More bad news for the Republicans? Great!" But the more I see the story air, the more it just saddens and sickens me. He's another man, married to a woman, with children, whose family and career have been destroyed by the lie so many closeted gay men feel forced to tell themselves, and their world.
And he's yet another man who hated who he was so much, he decided the only way God would love him was to make war on men and women just like him—to root them out, and destroy them. I can't imagine living such an insane, pathetic, suicidal lie. My strongest emotion for this man is pity.
So I think I'm done talking about his secretly being gay.
I am not, however, done talking about Haggard's fundamentalism. I find his, and so many other right-wing Christian Americans' religious fanaticism, terrifying and fascinating. And this clip, courtesy of Andrew Sullivan, is harrowing stuff. It is a documentary video by evolutionary scientist Richard Dawkins, in which he engages Haggard in a lively, spontaneous debate over religion vs. scientism.
I highly, highly recommend you view it. Get to the end, when Haggard really goes after Dawkins.
