The Haggard Episode and the Case for “Gay
Marriage”:
Why the Two Have No Connection
By Robert A. J. Gagnon, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Pittsburgh
Theological Seminary
Nov. 6, 2006
[For proper pagination, spacing, font size,
margins, and especially printing, I recommend the pdf version
here.]
The media has generated
enormous coverage over the Ted Haggard sex scandal. A male homosexual
prostitute has alleged that Rev. Haggard—at the time of the disclosure
head of the National Association of Evangelicals and senior pastor of
the 14,000-member New Life Church in Colorado—regularly paid him for
homosexual sex. Haggard at first denied this but in a letter of
confession issued to his church he acknowledged, without going into any
detail, that he was “guilty of sexual immorality” (for a copy of the
letter on the web, go to
http://www.gazette.com/display.php?id=1326186&secid=14,
retrieved 11/6/06). The consequences for Haggard are great: not only
resignation from the NAE but also “permanent removal from the office of
Senior Pastor of New Life Church.” Left-leaning media outlets have spun
the story to underscore the hypocrisy of his criticism, and perhaps
any criticism, of “gay marriage”; that this whole scandal would not
have come about if Haggard had been free to marry a man.
I don’t agree with the
spin. The scandal should have no bearing on the “gay marriage” debate.
Now it is true that in politics what should be the case is not
always in fact the case—the whole perception vs. reality debate.
Nevertheless, there is still some benefit to injecting some reason and
logic into the issue, if only to give impulsive political commentators
some pause.
Haggard is now
repenting of three repetitive sexual activities that the Scriptures of
his church consistently treat as serious offenses to God and a
dishonoring of self: homosexual intercourse, adultery, and sex with a
prostitute. On top of these are two non-sexual offenses: deception and
the purchasing, if not taking, of illegal drugs.
[Author’s note, 11/14/06: A correction is in order here. Strictly
speaking, Haggard has confessed only to “sexual immorality” in the
context of some dealings with a homosexual prostitute. So the homosexual
offense may have been something less than full intercourse. This
correction, however, does not materially affect the point of this
article; namely, the false use of the Haggard episode by the media and
others to promote “gay marriage.”]
Haggard was correct in
publicly opposing homosexual practice, adultery, and sex with
prostitutes but incorrect in violating his own principles. The remedy is
repentance from immoral behavior, not the endorsement of such behavior.
It is interesting that liberal media outlets have not yet made a case
for civil incentives for adultery and prostitution. They only extend the
political implications of hypocrisy to homosexual marriage.
Analogies are helpful
here. Most men are ‘polysexual.’ Except for conscience, they would
experience no significant psychic discomfort from having intercourse
with multiple, drop-dead gorgeous women. A 2003 study of over 16,000
persons around the globe concluded that, cross-culturally, men find
monogamy significantly more difficult than women (David P. Schmitt et
al., “Universal sex differences in the desire for sexual variety: Tests
from 52 nations, 6 continents, and 13 islands,” Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology
85 [2003]: 85-104). It is studies like these that
generate the wry observation, “What would we do without experts?”
The fact that most men have polysexual orientations,
which creates a higher risk factor for non-monogamous patterns of
behavior, should not lead society to endorse polygamous practices for
men. Would the media trumpet as an argument for polygamous marriage the
case of a pastor who, while publicly opposing polygamy, was having
sexual relations with more than one person at the same time? I very much
doubt it, at least as of today. Tomorrow may be another matter.
Or take the case of ‘pedosexuality’ (pedophilia).
Dr. Fred Berlin, founder of the Sexual Disorders
Clinic at Johns Hopkins Hospital, has referred to pedophilia as an
“orientation” that nobody chooses to have but whose development is at
least partly tied to risk factors at birth and/or in early childhood
(“United States Conference of Catholic Bishops: Interview with Frederick
S. Berlin, M.D., Ph.D.,” 1997,
http://www.nccbuscc.org/comm/kit6.shtml; retrieved 11/3/06). Change
for pedophiles, defined unreasonably as the complete eradication of all
pedophilic impulses, is very difficult, if not nearly impossible. Even
so, if a pastor (rightly) publicly condemned pedosexual behavior and
afterwards was caught engaging (wrongly) in sex with a child, would any
in the media use this as an argument for eliminating formal age
prerequisites for sexual activity?
The list of absurdities
could go on and on. A prominent pastor who has publicly railed against
the exploitative practices of multinational corporations is caught
embezzling church funds. A good argument for societal approval of greedy
business practices?
The truth is that the
tension between knowing the right and doing the wrong is as old as
humanity. It doesn’t make the wrong right. The ancients knew this.
Euripides drew the lesson from the story of Medea, who out of feelings
for revenge ended up killing her own children, that “passion overmasters
sober thought” (Medea 1074-80). Centuries later, Ovid commented
similarly on the story: “Desire persuades me one way, reason another. I
see the better and approve it, but follow the worse” (Metamorphoses
7:17-21). The apostle Paul described the life of everyone under the
jurisdiction of the Law of Moses as “not doing the good that I want but
doing the evil that I do not want,” owing to the tyranny of the sinful
impulse operating in human “flesh” (Letter to the Romans 7:14-25).
This lament did not
lead to the condoning of improper behavior, however, or an attack on
moral knowledge itself. The Stoics argued that bad behavior was, in
reality, evidence of bad or defective knowledge. The apostle Paul
contended that a new internal regulating power was needed to master the
internal “law of sin”; namely, the gift of the Spirit of God (Romans
8:1-17).
Even some prominent
pro-gay researchers who have posited congenital factors for homosexual
development acknowledge that “no clear conclusions about the morality of
a behavior can be made from the mere fact of biological causation,
because all behavior is biologically caused” (Brian Mustanski and J.
Michael Bailey, “A therapist’s guide to the genetics of human sexual
orientation,” Sexual and Relationship Therapy 18:4 [2003]: 432).
Yes, all behavior is at some level biologically caused and all
non-coerced sane persons are morally culpable for their
behavior—obviously. People are not responsible for the mere experience
of sinful impulses. But they are responsible for what they do with such
impulses.
In his letter to his
church Haggard candidly reflects on how he got to this point in his
life:
I am a deceiver and a liar. There is a part of my life that is so
repulsive and dark that I've been warring against it all of my adult
life. For extended periods of time, I would enjoy victory and rejoice
in freedom. Then, from time to time, the dirt that I thought was gone
would resurface, and I would find myself thinking thoughts and
experiencing desires that were contrary to everything I believe and
teach. . . . When I stopped communicating about my problems, the
darkness increased and finally dominated me. As a result, I did things
that were contrary to everything I believe.
If Ted Haggard has had
to struggle with homosexual impulses, then the years in which he did not
give into those impulses and violate trust with his wife are
commendable. Warfare with deeply ingrained desires to do what God
expressly forbids is a part of human life. Haggard is right. When we
stop communicating to others about the battles that we have with sinful
impulses, especially sinful sexual impulses, we open ourselves to
the domination of such impulses. No command of God that is strongly,
absolutely, and pervasively present in Scripture is predicated on human
beings first losing all desire to violate the command in question.
Haggard may have to
struggle with homosexual impulses all his life, just as all of us have
to struggle with various sinful impulses, some of which Haggard may
share with most of humanity and some of which he may not. Nobody gets an exemption from the
struggle, not even when the sinful desires persist. That is why Jesus
called his followers to take up their cross, deny themselves, and lose
their lives. At the points when we fail to live up to the moral commands
of God that we rightly proclaim, the fault lies with our behavior, not
with the commands of God.
The church should hold
Haggard lovingly accountable to repent or turn from such behavior and,
following such repentance, should actively work to restore him—and
continue to oppose all the offenses that he committed. My one regret
with the way that Haggard has been treated is that he has been
permanently barred from ever again being senior pastor at New Life
Church. I think that this is a mistake. There is no valid Christian
reason why Haggard could not return to that position at a future date,
after the period of oversight and recovery to which Haggard is now
submitting. Jesus did tell us that even if we sin seven times a day (or
77 times or 70 times 7 times, depending on the Gospel cited) and say “I
repent” we can be forgiven (Luke 17:3-4; Matthew 18:15, 21-22). I see no
reason why a pastor is any different. Now that would be a model of grace
to the church.
[For responses to the
article and my comments go here.]
Robert A. J. Gagnon, Ph.D., is a
professor at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and author of The Bible
and Homosexual Practice: Texts and Hermeneutics. He can be reached at
gagnon@pts.edu.