Sunday, November 05, 2006

“Oh, Lord. Please deliver me from your True Believers!”

There is so much hypocrisy in the Republican Party and their supporters these days. You can hardly pick up a newspaper or go on-line without tripping over yet another story involving the Republicans and/or their evangelical supporters saying one thing and getting caught in another. Rush Limbaugh and his “drug problem”. Anyone involved in the Abramoff scandal. Duke Cunningham and his program of legislation for profit. George Allen, the candidate for the Senate in Virginia, and his history of nooses hanging in his office, his love for the Confederacy, his famous “macaca” statement. The list goes on and one.

This latest one (via Huffington Post) has me simultaneously rolling my eyes toward the ceiling and laughing hysterically. Ted Haggard, the leader of about the biggest evangelical groups in the country and who is said to meet with Bush or his advisors on a weekly basis, has been forced to resign because it appears that he paid for sex from a male prostitute. Oh, yes. He also bought crystal meth from the guy. His excuse? He didn’t have sex with the man, only got a massage. And he threw away the drugs, even though he “was tempted”. Yeah, sure. I really believe that. What do you bet that he will now go into a drug rehab center for about three months until this all dies away?

This is all starting to look like a pattern. Several years ago now (it seems like a thousand), we had “Jeff Gannon” and his extremely bizarre questions to the Presidential Press Secretary. He was a male prostitute with his own website, and yet continually got a “freebie” pass to the press briefings in the White House, when reporters from legitimate news organizations could not get them. And then, just recently (also seems like ages ago), we have the whole Mark Foley chasing young male pages around, sending them really creepy and disturbing e-mail, offering up his house for an ex-page to stay in if the said ex-page would perform sex on Foley. That’s just icky. And now, we have this one. Haggard was dismissed from his post after all this went public.

"It was an easy decision once we discovered there was a sexual immorality," Ware said, noting that Haggard agreed dismissal was the right course. "He has a concern and a love for this church. He knows he has hurt people and he needs to heal."

Ware said he believes Haggard was not honest in his statements to the media last week because of the stress and pressure on him.

"This is a clash between divinity and humanity," Ware said. "We're all human, and we make mistakes."

The oversight board will continue to investigate Haggard so "a plan of healing and restoration can begin.”


What IS it with the Republican party and the evangelicals and homosexuality? There has been some things written lately about the possible psychological makeup of people like this. They have such desires (i.e., lust) that they may or may not act upon. Many times, it appears they do act upon them. But apparently, they feel so guilty and immoral about it, they go out and use the position of power (i.e., the bully pulpit) to go disparage gays and try to make them seem like inhuman monsters.

Almost like a projection of self-hatred, yes?

When I heard about this last week, I will admit that I said to myself “Oh, boy. I really, really hope this is true.” I love the smell of hypocrisy in the morning. It smells like victory. Hopefully on this coming Tuesday, but perhaps also for the ultimate smashing open of the dark soul of these True Believers. That might show the country what they are truly made of.

Read more in this story at Huffington Post

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