Gayness in the air

Ever since the Foley thing, everyone's been talking about the gay. This Haggard thing is even worse. Ordinarily I wouldn't kick someone when they're down, but I've decided to suspend all scruples today in pursuit of an object lesson. Haggard was the pastor of one of the largest evangelical churches in the US and he's been doing meth and male prostitutes. Seriously dude, way to blow the lid off the notion that evangelicals are boring prudes! It's pretty uncool to do drugs though, lame to have to pay for sex, and legitimately sinful to break one's marriage vows. (the only upshot is at least he wasn't "coveting another's wife")

So the serious point I wanted to make was people always give Catholic priests shit for being gay. It's true there are a lot of gay priests, and without going into specifics let's just say that some clergy have other sexual issues. One proposed solution has been to allow Catholics to marry, which in some people's mind would fix that right up. Behold evidence it would not in the form of Haggard.

As a lesser point, I read James Wolcott's post on the Haggard thing, in which he's starts out talking about teabagging (this might be a good point to mention that this post may be NSFW), segues into his opinion that all republicans are gay (which simply can't be true), and concludes that he misses Will and Grace (which is practically coming out of the closet himself). Anyway in the course of Wolcott's irreverent diatribe, it crosses my mind that Haggard is married to the type of woman who marries an evangelical pastor. Now I know I'm making horrible assumptions, but I'm guessing between the 5 kids and the pastor-wife thing, maybe he can't get a decent BJ in his homelife, let alone a professional one. Now I rather imagine that Mr. Haggard is homosexual or fully bisexual, but part of me wonders whether ordinary sexual unfulfilledness played a role in his combination bender/bend-over. It sure seems like an act of desperation. I know I'm probably blaming the victim here, but I wonder whether his wife was just too prudish for him.

Speaking of the wife...I can't imagine how much it sucks for her to find out her husband has been doing hardcore drugs and cheating on her with a male prostitute, not to mention the family losing it's main source of income, and her husband being revealed as a hipocrite and a national embarassment. If you want to throw in the typical evangelical mindset, she probably thinks her spouse is destined for Hell too. The last thing she needs is random assholes on the internet making suppositions about their marriage and sex life. Hmmm. Ok, I feel a little bad now. But if there's even a chance that a healthier marriage could have prevented this, I think that would be a valuable lesson.

And then we have this discussion between Andrew Sullivan and NRO, in which NRO claims:

This is why gay marriage threatens heterosexual marriage.

Hmm. I don't see it myself. It's not like Haggard was looking to marry the man-whore. OTOH- it's closest evidence to date that there's any substance to that ridiculous argument. At least in this case it can be argued that a gay relationship (coupled of course with the Meth) casued marital issues. Nahh, I think that's still total BS.

And for those remaining "libertarian republicans" out there...get a load of this:

If everyone were in control of his appetites, there would be no need for the government to be involved in endorsing some sexual relationships while withholding endorsement from others.

NRO, that intellectual beacon of conservative thought, is now claiming that it's the government's responsibility to endorse or deny sexual behaviors. State's rights are dead and buried. Let me break this down: A married pastor hired a male prostitute to get high on meth with and screw. And NRO thinks the problem is the homosexuality?

Speaking of governments regulating sexuality, let's not forget to vote against Santorum tomorrow, right?