originally posted december 2008.  reposted 11 August 2009 in response to Gwen's request and because i finally caught the documentary this weekend on HBO on demand - and found  (much to my chagrin) that i'm still angry with him - and his choices.

I’m a little behind on my usual obsessive news consumption.  Being snowed in for three days with a toddler will do that to you.  But this morning after spending a brisk half hour scraping ice and making sure my car still ran I made myself a cup of coffee in the self righteous afterglow of snow removal and turned on CNN.

And there it was - another story about Ted.

For everyone who isn’t either gay/lesbian, evangelical, or didn’t happen to grow up in my very weird corner of the deep south, Ted Haggard is making the news feeds again, this time with an HBO documentary on his rise and fall slated to be shown in late January, 2009.

Ted, can you please go away, already?

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Ted and I go way back, to about the late seventies, when he was working for WMFJ.   I was about twelve when we met and he recruited my mother to work for WMFJ pretty shortly after that.  That was the start of my real tumble down the rabbit hole of the emerging mega churches, my mother taking me along for the very weird ride.

Then he became my youth pastor.

Then he became the associate pastor.

Then he went off to start New Life when I was about sixteen, seventeen or so.

My mother was a single parent and I was a well behaved only child, so I went everywhere she did.  Endless evenings of card games, dinners, holidays with the chosen circle of Oral Roberts University graduates emerging to shape the evangelical world.  I have fairly good stories about all of them, but always and forever there was Ted.  Especially after his father visited several times and he and I became close enough for him to declare me his ‘spiritual child’, therefore making Ted my big brother.

But everyone called him Uncle Ted, so that’s how I refer to him in my head.

Ted taught me to drive.  My mother used him as my positive male role model, calling him in to deal with my teenage issues.  I babysat for his two oldest children.  I was paroled to his house after school (a later post will deal with the crazy compound on which I spent most of my adolescence, with church, school and housing all on church owned land) when it was determined that Satan was angling for my soul.  Took his scripture memory class.  At an early point, his office was twenty yards or less away from my bedroom.

So, I guess you could say we were close for a while.

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Here’s where I was going to tell all the stories about Ted and the youth group days, but it seems gossipy, snarky, and beside the point.

And here’s where I was going to tell the entire story of the endless news coverage days in 2006 and my screaming down the house when they showed the envelope he sent to the escort, with the handwriting I’ve known most of my life spelling out ‘art’ in the corner.  But again, not the point. 

So, what is the point of this post?

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Dear Ted –

We’ve known each other for a long time, and at a very formative time of my life.  I’m sorry for what you, Gayle, and the children and your family have gone through.  Whatever you’ve done, I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. 

(Though I admit I had a strong desire to punch you when you piled Gayle and the children in the truck and had Gayle roll down the window on her side so you could lie again to the media – did you even see the look on her face?  Did it even register with you when you watched the footage later?).

Of all the sermons you preached and the conversations we’ve had, two things have stuck in my head over the years and I’d like to take the opportunity to repeat them to you:

1.   No Lazy Lefts

Oh, the fun of my mother recruiting men to teach me to drive.  Each of them had something different they stressed, so in retrospect, it wasn’t the worst plan.  You were very clear on one point.  No Lazy Lefts.   You shouldn’t cross into another car’s lane space, but pull up, signaling and make a crisp 90 degree turn.  No shoddy, lazy driving.  Form was important.  Proper form was everything.

Bad form, Ted.   Your endless media whoring is bad, bad, bad, bad form.  Never saying no to a media request; “the president calls me”; Email leaks of fund-raising letters with monies raised clearing through a registered sex offender; brave, self-sacrificing, ridiculously off to the wilderness ‘I’m going to live in a halfway house and take mail order courses’ statements; “I’m cured”; and let’s not even go to the ‘I was molested as a child’ announcement.  And now a documentary.  Stop whinging, already.  I understand that you built your life and got your self esteem from assuming leadership roles and courting media attention but if there was ever a chance for you to get off your self-created rollercoaster and become a real boy - Ted, if you could work on being ok with being alone with yourself - this is it. 

Proper form is everything, Ted.

2.  Always Take the Harder Choice – it’s usually the right one

Oh, this one.  This one has seriously messed with my life and is probably mainly responsible for the fact that despite two masters, I still labor in the non-profit ghetto, earning way below market value.

 In my current life, people call me empathetic and intuitive.  Back in evangelical land, I was said to have the gift of discernment.  So, here’s the thing, Ted.  You’re gay.  I was saying it before 2006 and I’m of the same opinion now. 

But you didn’t take the harder choice.  Call it what you will, you played it both ways, elmer gantry-ing your mega to national attention, hanging out in gay bars to “minister”.  I think what you were doing was dishonest, but I know how you were raised and the evangelical position on homosexuality.  You may have honestly felt you had no choice; it would have cost you your family’s acceptance when young, got you kicked out of ORU and kept you from the only option you were really presented as a career and a chance to earn your father’s approval. 

But come on, your actions were a textbook attempt to get caught.  But then your most terrifying, secret wish came true and it was all out in the open.  You had your chance, finally, to live honestly as an adult - even if it was playing out on CNN - and you blew it. 

Push came to shove and what did you do?  You weaseled.  You prevaricated.  You out and out lied (holding up Gayle and the children in a pathetic attempt at shielding yourself) until there wasn’t a way to lie anymore. 

Did you take the harder choice, Ted?  Did you seize your chance for your “I am a gay (Evangelical) American” moment?  No.  You were out (in more ways then one) and you pulled yourself back in.  I winced when I saw evangelical leaders of my childhood making media statements.  You had finally forced things to a breaking point, got terrified, and tried to crawl back into your evangelical closet.

It may have been a hard choice, but it wasn’t the hardest one.  The hardest one would have been being honest.   The hardest one would have been coming out.

I have always respected your hauling the ‘dominion over the earth and its’ resources’ evangelicals to the environmental movement.  You brought awareness to people who thought that environmentalism was a crunchy, secular-humanist plot against god’s will.

Can you imagine what the effect would have been if you had been honest about being gay?  Can you imagine the conversations that would have started?  Can you imagine trying to live your life with dignity as a gay evangelical Christian?

Can you imagine it?  Can you see the opportunity you’ve thrown away until now?

Always take the harder choice, Ted.  It’s usually the right one.

And until then, could we ask that you practice good form?