Legions of gay men cried bitter tears today when the disgraced megachurch leader Ted Haggard was pronounced "completely heterosexual." Apparently the four fellow ministers who took Haggard under their wings for intensive counseling following have come to that conclusion after their three weeks with him.
According to one Tim Ralph (also a minister), the good reverend has "discovered" that he is completely heterosexual: "It was the acting-out situations where things took place. It wasn't a constant thing.''
No word whether the whole meth thing was also situational.
The New York Times article also asserts that Haggard and his wife, Gayle--publicly denounced by one religious leader in the wake of the Haggard scandal as at least partially to blame for Farmer Ted's decision to sow his completely heterosexual oats with a male meth addict because she hadn't been keeping those home fires burning with quite enough intensity--will leave Colorado to pursue graduate degrees in Psychology. Let's hope they choose a non-reality-based university, one whose Psych program trips blithely over the part about denial.
So all's well that ends well, no? Everyone's happy? I mean, except for the gay men. (I'm sure that they had desperately wanted to give Haggard the toaster oven and lead him into further temptation.) OK, and maybe the heterosexuals, because, frankly, do we really want this guy on our team? I love rampant hypocrisy as much as the next gal, but I'm just not sure he's representing my family values, what with the judging and the demands for wifely submission and the labeling of homosexuality as a curable mental disorder. I guess that just leaves a bunch of happy lesbians, really. Maybe the joy caused by this announcement isn't quite as wide-reaching as I might have imagined.