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01/12/2009
Haggard changes; now more civil
WOW!:
TED HAGGARD: "Prior to my crisis, I was for equality under the law no matter how people grouped. Whether it was two old spinsters living together or a homosexual couple or a heterosexual couple, I think it ought to be the same under the law. But prior to my crisis, I thought the word 'marriage,' I thought it was worth defending the definition of it -- the traditional definition of it, and I no longer believe that. I'm looking out a window right now and the steel in the frame is married to the glass. So marriage doesn't just mean the union between a man and a woman, it also means where two pieces of steel come together or where the curb meets the street, it marries the street."
...
"I think the government should recognize the union between people whether they're gay or not in whatever the language they choose, whether they call it a marriage or a civil union, it's up to them. If the government is going to be in the business of recognizing people grouped together as couples, then they need to that across the board. It's a big change for me."
"It's not a change in my view of civil liberties. I've always believed this. It's a change in semantics. I'm saying prior to the crisis, I would defend marriage as the sacred term for the church to use for heterosexual monogamous couples. Now I've broadened that and said it's not worth having a war over the definition of a word. I believe that under civil law people should be respected. And it should be equality under the law. So either the government needs to get out of recognizing that couples are together and make everybody file the same tax returns, etc. Or they need to recognize all of them. I don't think it's wise for the government to separate based on what goes on in a person's bedroom."
Ted Haggard is OK with gay marriage but not really [SFGate Politics blog]
(H/t: J.M.G.)
However, before you pick up the phone to book Pastor Ted to perform your Massachusetts or Connecticut wedding: The writer with which Haggard spoke, The San Francisco Chronicle's Joe Garofoli, notes that an HBO PR person called soon after to reinforce that the disgraced former faith leader was not saying that he's now personally in favor of same-sex marriage. But if we are to believe the words that he conveyed in the interview, he does understand the difference between personal religious opinion and government recognition, which is really what most of us in the gay rights community care about most. So we guess what we're saying: PUT TED BACK IN A PROMINENT 'PRO-FAMILY' LEADERSHIP ROLE! Because personal opinion, schmersonal opinion: The non-religious rights are (A) what we want and (B) what the religious right is denying to us.
Of course the reality is that he won't be informing "pro-family" policy anytime soon, so these thoughts are unlikely to pull any of his former colleagues out of the civil marriage arena. But hey, a boy [who's sick of pausing his life to fight this needless culture war] can dream!
Your thoughts
wow. that's all I can say right now....wow.
p.s. sorry for grammatical errors, I am learning to type with only one hand, since I burned my right one last week.
Posted by: Piper | Jan 12, 2009 2:26:07 PM
And, to think, that it only took a gay prostitute to lure him away from the dark side. Granted, it probably took several dozen encounters with said prostitute to open his eyes to the truth, and make him see the better, brighter future that awaits him. The moral to this story... those fundie bastards need to get laid.
Posted by: Dick Mills | Jan 12, 2009 3:41:16 PM
I think it would be interesting to find out what specifically happened during the crisis to change his feelings about the word marriage. Maybe when the tell all book comes out we'll find out.
Posted by: Piper | Jan 12, 2009 4:06:27 PM
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