Friday, December 08, 2006

Poor old SpongeTed gay pants.

They are going to straighten him out but good.
"Disgraced pastor Ted Haggard this week formally begins his long journey toward recovery from a drugs-and-gay-sex scandal that forced him to step down as one of the most influential evangelical leaders in the nation.

Haggard, 50, has turned himself over to a team of counselors who are "assessing his spiritual, emotional and mental condition," said the Rev. H.B. London, who is helping to guide Haggard through the process. London and two other pastors will then set out a rigorous "restoration plan" requiring Haggard to spend hours each week in counseling, Bible study, prayer and soul-baring talks — by phone or in person — with his mentors.

The team's first task will be to push Haggard to acknowledge any addictions and come to an honest understanding of his sexuality. "Ted is not in touch with reality," said the Rev. Mark Cowart, a friend. The mentors can confront Haggard or rebuke him forcefully; they may also ask him to submit to a polygraph test.

"Ted says he's not a homosexual," said the Rev. Mike Ware, a good friend. "The restoration team wants experts to evaluate that."
His restoration team largely shares this theology. It includes two veteran pastors of evangelical mega-churches: the Rev. Jack W. Hayford, 72, of Van Nuys and the Rev. Tommy Barnett, 69, of Phoenix. Both pastors — like Haggard — draw on the charismatic tradition, including speaking in tongues.

The third member of the team, London, 69, serves as vice president of Dobson's conservative ministry Focus on the Family, which promotes therapy to help gays and lesbians change their sexual orientation.

As director of pastoral outreach for the Colorado Springs-based ministry, London has counseled hundreds of clergy with admitted moral failings; up to half don't make it through the rehabilitation. "They grow weary of the regimen and drop out," he said.

Of course they do.
Well now, Country Gay and I had chat about this and we reckon that ol Ted might be really quite gay indeed. Initially I laughed when I hear about this scandal, but this restoration gig sounds super iffy.
The fact that these folk think they can 'change' a person's sexual identity is worrisome. That somehow they can iron Ted out. Does anyone else find this development down right weird?

25 Comments:

Blogger Sam, Problem-Child-Bride said...

He fancies blokes, therefore he is gay. Whether or not he or anybody else can "straighten" him out - and they can't - seems beside the point to me. The bloke is a face-man of the very worst order, sell, sell, selling himself and his lies right to the end:

While the whole thing was going on over here, he appeared time after time with his wife and children by his side to refute the charges until it became obvious he couldn't refute them any longer. His wife looked bemused and his children shell-shocked, yet he put them through the public ordeal of finding out "daddy is one of them sinners he taught us to revile." He lied to his whole church to save his sorry arse relying on their blind trust in him, and pulled the I-need-rehab-card right on cue when he got caught. He had been a model of cool damage-control in motion up until then.

If I were the "reconstruction" panel I'd be less worried about the gay thing and more worried about the cold, calculating, hiding behind your family, git thing.

In certain parts of the US people do actually believe homosexuality can be cured. Oddly, they seem less concerned about whether being a manipulative arsehole can be cured.

6:13 p.m.  
Blogger fatmammycat said...

He's a cool cookie all right.
Do you think if that prostitute had not kept the voice mail tapes he would ever have come clean? I don't, nope sireeebob.

6:21 p.m.  
Blogger Andraste said...

Agreed. Gay? Who cares?

It's the HYPOCRITICAL, JUDGEMENTAL, LYING ARSEHOLES that go to hell...

Not that I believe in hell, by any means. Just sometimes I wish I did...

6:56 p.m.  
Anonymous Anonymous said...


"Ted says he's not a homosexual," said the Rev. Mike Ware, a good friend. "The restoration team wants experts to evaluate that."


evaluate, how?

i hope there's a YouTube vid that comes out of this.

8:10 p.m.  
Blogger fatmammycat said...

Perhaps it will be like a scene from a Tom Sharpe novel, they'll show Ted every episode of Will and Grace and guage his reactions. Thumbs up if he does not get Jack's jokes, down if he thinks Kevin Bacon and Jack dancing to Footloose is 'hil-ar-i-ous!'

8:20 p.m.  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

When the story first came out and they said they would be assessing his "mental condition" that meant that they were going to "fix" him. Some religions definitely believe that being homosexual is a mental problem. We even have a woman on a radio talk show that says being homosexual is just a mistake by God. Where do these kinds of thoughts come from???

How about this - let's let Ted be himself, which is a gay man, but let's get him some help with the drug problem, shall we? Now THERE'S a way to fix him.

Who wants to lay money on WHEN the wife divorces him? Six months? A year? Any takers?

11:01 p.m.  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

This put me in mind of the films "Saved" and "But I'm a cheerleader"
Recently a born again Christian friend (hard to believe but I have two of them and I love going to see the lions at the zoo with them) was really questioning my plans.
Now it wasn't a confrontational,hostile or judgemental conversation but it got weird when she asked me "How do you know the Devil isn't putting you up to this?" in all seriousness.
My reply that there was a equally likely chance that it was her God "putting me up to it" seemed to annoy her.
Belated Happy Birthday BTW.Mwaah.

9:10 a.m.  
Blogger fatmammycat said...

Bonnie I bet you anything his wife won't divorce him this year or the next. This is a woman who has built her whole life around this man and their church.
And you are spot on,
Devin thank you and if I may, snarf, that made me laugh. Of course she didn't like it. 'Putting you up to it' a 'mistake from God'
Lordy, I like the way Christians are always so cock sure of themselves, that they and they alone know God's great plan-assuming he has one. Assuming a god can be a he, assuming a deity really gives a crap what a bunch of folk think. Assuming there is a deity...oh, see where I"m going with this?
Faith, yours, mine theirs, that all we have to go on, so why should yours be any less or more correct than theirs?

11:22 a.m.  
Blogger Dr Maroon said...

Don't be too hard on him. Maybe he isn't a God-cursed Soddomite, maybe he's just good with lights and soft furnishings.
Does he like IKEA?
He does?
Well then I guess he's done for.
God doesn't like poofs.

11:36 a.m.  
Blogger fatmammycat said...

Ikea, the new superchuch, attended in droves every weekend be bored children, reluctant spouses and glassy-eyed believers. You could be on to something Docky.

1:04 p.m.  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

A neighbour of mine had a car like that once. It had a problem with the steering and he used to call to my house for help, because I owned a few spanners and he didn't. We worked on it for weeks but we were never able to make it go straight.

It was a Triumph Sodomite

8:30 p.m.  
Blogger Joey B said...

Maybe he's bi.

3:28 a.m.  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

6:59 a.m.  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

What the...... think you have been hijacked by an anonymous there, FMC???? Maybe it was Ted giving his excuses??

5:26 p.m.  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

No. It was the same jerks who've been spamming all the Limerick blogs over the last few days.

7:23 p.m.  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

That feckin anonymous bastard is everywhere these days.

Some Christians do believe that stuff about converting gays. I have first-hand experience of it.

The beliefs, that is. Not gayness.

10:26 a.m.  
Blogger fatmammycat said...

Who is that spammer twat? And why oh why is he spamming folk? It's not like anyone reads it, so what is the point?

11:00 a.m.  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I personally don't care if someone fucks turtles.

It's their business, just as long as they don't think I need to hear all the details.

9:11 p.m.  
Blogger Student said...

A lying, drug addict god botherer. I think being gay is not his biggest problem.

I am a bit worried about the churches brain washing team. "Fixing" homosexuals. SUrely if that's allowed we can fix those crazy religious types. We just need to get them in a room with a bunch of logical athiests and work on them!

10:06 a.m.  
Blogger fatmammycat said...

You'd need more than a reparation party for that one.

4:51 p.m.  
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