All Better

I didn’t think it was possible for Ted Haggard to become any less dignified, but he managed to pull it off by declaring after a mere three weeks in counseling that he is “completely heterosexual.” Wow. His counselors must be more powerful than the god he prayed to all those years for deliverance from his unnatural desires. Shock therapy anyone?

Haggard has consistently claimed that his sexual contact with men was limited to former male escort Mike Jones, who outed Haggard back in October. His counselors argue that such a claim is credible because since the story of Haggard’s sexcapades broke, nobody else has come forward.

Explained the Reverend Tim Ralph, one of the overseers chosen to guide the transition of Haggard’s former church: “If we’re going to be proved wrong, somebody else is going to come forward, and that usually happens really quickly. We’re into this thing over 90 days, and it hasn’t happened.” I guess Ralph and the other overseers don’t know much about the myriad opportunities for anonymous gay sex that a major city like Denver offers. Or at least that’s what they’d have us believe.

Ralph also described the episode with Jones as “acting out,” as opposed to “a constant thing,” meaning that Haggard is truly a straight man who chose, for some unknown reason, to “act out” by sleeping with another man. Act out. Isn’t that the term of choice these days for describing when children misbehave? What on earth could have caused Haggard to “act out” by purchasing crystal meth and having gay sex? His wife must be a real bitch.

Frankly, Haggard is better off in the closet. I mean, did we really want to see Haggard in drag at the next Denver Pride? Or making a spectacle of himself on the dance floor of one of Denver’s gay clubs, with his shirt off, belting out the lyrics to the newest gay anthem? And who’d want to date him? All that baggage? Puh-lease.

Haggard’s pretty harmless at this point anyway. Let’s face it, in spite of his lightning fast restoration to heterosexuality, he’s too wacko and controversial to be held up as a paradigm of hope by the ex-gay movement. I think the only people he’s actually convinced are the members of his “restoration” team (good work, boys!) and his poor wife Gayle, though I suspect she’s pretty gullible. He’ll never regain the influence and trust he once had. His days of advising presidents on the moral course of the nation are over for good.