Do I feel sorry for Ted Haggard?

Surprisingly, perhaps, the answer is: "yes".

I just watched a documentary about his life after he was forced from his position as a national leader of evangelicals in the USA for his sexual activity with another man.

I am uncertain as to the objectivity of the documentary. Haggard is portrayed as a really nice guy, doing the best he can in a tough situation. This may be true: but he's an amazing speaker, he excels at rhetoric, and he can carry a crowd. He knows how to say the right thing. So I am unconvinced that I am hearing the absolute truth here. Even if the documentary-maker is objective, Mr Haggard knows how to play to the media and to the crowd: he made a living from it for years, after all, and so I regard him in the same way I would regard a skilled politician - he sounds genuine, but is he? I remain on the fence.

So why do I feel sorry for him? Well, he and his family have lost friends and have been exiled from their home state (yes, in this day and age - exiled) for no other reason than his sexuality.

That's the bottom line: he's not hetreosexual, so he lost his job, his livlihood, many of his friends, and could well have lost his wife into the bargain.

How much simpler everything would have been if he could have simply been honest with his wife, his family, his friends, and his employers.

But because he isn't 100% heterosexual, and subscribes to a dogma which tells him that this makes him sinful rather than just human, he instead lead a secret life - which made him feel very guilty and unhappy. When his secrets were discovered, his life was destroyed.

So yes - I feel sorry for Ted Haggard and his family: he is a victim of the intolerance of dogmatic people. That he himself subscribed to that dogma I cannot blame him for: he was offered love, hope, and bliss. Who doesn't want that? In accepting it, Ted Haggard showed that he was human.

It is such a pity that in doing so, he had to deny that he was human and live a lie.

Some may say that he was hoist on his own petard, and to a certain degree this is true. But I think he has been a victim of the deceit of a religion* which claims to preach love but which actually practices hate.

* I do not refer to Christianity in general, but the specific sect to which Mr Haggard belongs. Though many other sects also preach hatred and intolerance, not all of them do.