Soulforce Letter "Urges Compassion for Haggard & Accountability for the NAE"

[Coloradan4Truth]

I had this letter in my email inbox. I believe it gets at the real issue. (www.soulforce.org)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Soulforce Urges Compassion for Haggard and Accountability for the National Association of Evangelicals

(Austin, TX) -- In response to the news that Rev. Ted Haggard has been dismissed by New Life Church and resigned as President of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), Soulforce Executive Director Jeff Lutes urged the gay community to be compassionate and simultaneously called on the leaders of the NAE to claim responsibility for their role in the crisis.

"Rev. Haggard is just one more tragic example of how lives are destroyed by the lies about gay and lesbian people perpetuated by the NAE, the Religious Right, and both the Protestant and Roman Catholic Church. Taught by the church to hate himself, the only option from his point of view was to lead a psychologically and spiritually damaging double life marked by denial and self-destructive behavior. Rev. Haggard is a victim of religion-based bigotry that regularly demeans and demoralizes gay and lesbian people and refuses to acknowledge that we are part of the American fabric, and that many of us form loving families and practice a deep faith in God."

The NAE holds that "homosexuality is a deviation from the Creator's plan for human sexuality." In a 2004 policy statement, the organization opposes legislation that would protect gays and lesbians from hate crimes or employment discrimination on the grounds that "such legislation inevitably is perceived as legitimatizing the practice of homosexuality and elevates that practice to a level of an accepted moral standard."

Haggard submitted his resignation as President of the NAE on Thursday, shortly after allegations of homosexual activity were aired on Denver talk radio. On Saturday, Haggard was removed as pastor of New Life Church in Colorado Springs. In a letter to his congregation, Haggard wrote "there's a part of my life that is so repulsive and dark that I have been warring against it for all my adult life." He also wrote that the church's overseers have required him to "submit to the oversight of Dr. James Dobson, Pastor Jack Hayford, and Pastor Tommy Barnett. Those men will perform a thorough analysis of my mental, spiritual, emotional and physical life. They will guide me through a program with the goal of healing and restoration for my life, my marriage, and my family."

In reaction to the unfolding events, Lutes said "Our community's anger at Rev. Haggard's hypocrisy is completely understandable. However, my hope is that our community will take the high road and extend an olive branch of friendship and support when he is ready to fully come out as a gay man. Dobson and the others will counsel him to bury, deny, and repress his sexuality even deeper than before. They will wound his spirit, and he is going to need our prayers and our compassionate message that God loves him, affirms him, and calls him to live his life openly with honesty and integrity."

[MadMaddie]

1. Haggerd will continually bash the gay community.....he is only

worried about retaining his power at any cost....at the cost of his wife who he has been cheating on and possibly exposing....and to the gay community....

I have no sympathy for him....he intentionally worked with this administration to seek and destroy gays in America...he knew exactly what he was doing in public and behind closed doors...

This is all we need to know....
<snip>
Haggard wrote "there's a part of my life that is so repulsive and dark that I have been warring against it for all my adult life." He also wrote that the church's overseers have required him to "submit to the oversight of Dr. James Dobson, Pastor Jack Hayford, and Pastor Tommy Barnett.
<snip>

[mitchtv]

4. I wonder if Jimmy Swaggert will Kiss him

or Kill him
Gee the names rhyme, anyone for a song?

[littlebit]

6. He makes me ill

I have been out for most of my adult life. I have caught hell for it but I refuse to hide it. People like him make me sick. It is one thing to be in the closet it is another to bash the people like yourself.

[sui generis]

7. I have to agree - we have compassion for people who fuck up

their own lives. Choosing to fuck up other people's lives in this day and age is a tough sell in the forgiveness flea market.

Compassion? In the most arid intellectual sense. Yes, sorry Haggard that our society is SO cruel that you learned to hate yourself. But you took part in it. This would be like compassion for the Kapos at Treblinka and Auschwitz who thought to live a day longer by dragging their fellow jews into the gas chambers.

I'm sure they hated themselves too.

[Obamarama]

2. Yeah, I'll extend an olive branch to Ted......

And whack the shit out of the duplicitous cretin with it.

[Vorta]

3. LOL n/t

[Vorta]

5. What else could they say?

They are taking the high moral ground as they see it. I personally don't feel such an obligation to do that any more. This man is only two years older than I am; if he was born twenty or thirty years earlier I might understand the closet and the deception of his wife and family. It still wouldn't excuse his making his living promoting hate for gay people, anymore than Roy Cohn being born in my mother's generation could excuse his life as being necessary for his acquisition of wealth, power, and acceptance as a social climber.