There's more to the outing of Ted Haggard, one of the nation's most powerful evangelicals, than gay sex.
Think Progress has all the links to the breaking story of Pastor Ted Haggard's alleged secret life with gay prostitutes. Ted is one of the most powerful Christian fundamentalist leaders in the U.S., the president of the National Association of Evangelicals and an advisor to Bush. James Dobson is better known, but Ted is, politically, "good cop" to Dobson's "bad cop"; as he told me in 2005, they strategize as a team.
I'm the Harper's writer who first wrote about how powerful Ted was in early 2005 ("Soldiers of Christ") a story followed by Barbara Walters, Tom Brokaw, and, most intelligently, by the new documentary Jesus Camp. I'm blogging this now because I want people to return to my story, of course -- ego is real -- but also because I think it's important that people not just scream "hypocrite" because the gay basher turns out to be gay. We need to understand Ted's ideology, his connection of sexual "sin" to his view of biblical capitalism. Ted's big sin isn't lying about his homosexuality (if he is indeed gay), but rather his theology of brutal economics.
I just saw Ted again last week at a small event for Christian conservative pastors in Dallas. Most of them were there to learn about how to talk to kids, a perfectly innocent topic. Ted, a special guest, told them that they had to make sure that kids understood the centrality of "free markets" to the biblical worldview. THAT is where it all goes wrong. Ted's homophobia is very dangerous; but those of us worried about right wing religion need to realize that its critique, such as it is, is bigger than sex.
UPDATE: Apologies to those who'd posted earlier on this subject. I've removed "Breaking" from the title. I meant only to add the context of the old Harper's piece and a note from my most recent encounter w/ Ted, last Thursday.
I'll be on the [http://www.khow.com/pages/shows-boyles.html Peter Boyles Show] tomorrow morning, 7:20 east coast time, I think, talking about Ted. Boyles seems to be a sort of center-right talk show host, but independent enough to be pro-gay, as he told me. The issue here, though, is only partly one of homosexuality -- Ted is a major supporter of Colorado's anti-gay amendments, but as a political force his influence reaches into many issues. For instance, Ted talks to Bush about tariffs. Tariffs? What's a preacher doing talking to the president about trade issues? That's the point -- Christian conservative politics are much broader than the hot button social issues most secular folks notice. And that's why Christian conservative keep gaining ground -- we don't pay attention to their advances on economic issues.