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Sexual hypocrisy in Minneapolis: Anti-gay Lutheran Pastor Tom Brock ‘outed’
06.24.2010
12:48 am
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I read this story about a magazine called Lavender ‘outing’ an anti-gay Lutheran pastor by crashing his gay ‘chastity’ support group with interest and a chuckle this morning. Pastor Tom Brock, a local radio personality, had notoriously linked a tornado that struck a church and the Minneapolis Convention Center to gay marriage

The story went around the Internet faster than you could say Ted Haggard. Predictably, the judgement on hypocrite extraordinaire Brock was swift and chock full of schadenfreude. The Queerty website had this to say: Lutheran Pastor Tom Brock Blamed ELCA’s Tornado on Homosexuality. Which, Uh, He Suffers From. Ouch!

But then a bunch of articles calling the reporter’s journalistic ethics to task for betraying the anonymity of a support group setting started to appear. Lavender Media’s head Stephen Rocheford confirmed that reporter John Townsend was sent into the program “undercover,” but insists—and I agree with him 100%—that Brock — who broadcasts on a Christian radio station called KKMS-AM nearly every day of the week— is a major “get” for the gay community of Minneapolis:

“I personally, and Lavender Magazine as a matter of policy, do not believe in outing anyone. People are allowed to be crazy and dysfunctional in their lives. There’s one exception: a public figure who says one thing and does another. This is not the first homosexual minister who denounces homosexuality in public and engages in it in private.”

Damn straight (ahem) and every time one of these twisted, self-loathing Christian closet cases is exposed as a hypocrite, displays of public homophobia will become rarer and rarer and this is a very, very good thing. Brock should look at this new chapter in his life as a good thing, too, because he’ll no longer be able to live a lie and hurt the very people he might otherwise (if he is to be honest with himself) be the most appropriate pastor for. Go with God, Pastor Brock, go with God, mi’ fren…

Anti-gay Lutheran pastor protest too much (Lavender)

Lavender ‘outs’ Lutheran pastor—by crashing confidential support group (Minneapolis Post)

Lutheran Pastor Tom Brock Blamed ELCA’s Tornado on Homosexuality. Which, Uh, He Suffers From (Queerty)
 

 

Posted by Richard Metzger
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06.24.2010
12:48 am
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Ted Haggard: Now Really, Seriously, Super Not Gay

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Gayle Haggard, wife of multiple inner-demon battling Ted, is now absolutely convinced that the disgraced Reverend’s cast aside his amphetamine-fueled, same-sex loving ways.  And not only has she written a book about how really NOT gay Ted now is, she sat down with Meredith Vieira to discuss it:

Gayle Haggard appeared on the “Today” show on Wednesday to talk about her new book, “Why I Stayed: The Choices I Made In My Darkest Hour,” and declared that her one-time Evangelical superstar husband was cured of his homosexual compulsions.

“Our sexuality is conditioned, and we can be conditioned in any number of ways,” she told Meredith Vieira.  “Ted was dealing with certain compulsions that were unwanted.”  However, through therapy, she claims those compulsions—which she said Ted had suffered from most of his life—were gone.

Regarding the compulsions Haggard “suffered” from and subsequently “cured” himself of, Gayle was considerate enough to later point out that that might not be the path for everyone.

Previously on Dangerous Minds: Ted Haggard: Back In The Saddle

Gayle Haggard: My Husband Ted Haggard Is Free From Homosexual Compulsions—For Real This Time

Posted by Bradley Novicoff
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01.28.2010
01:05 pm
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Ted Haggard: Back In The Saddle
12.07.2009
04:33 pm
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While crystal meth and male prostitutes might have sent him into exile, disgraced former preacher Ted Haggard is now mounting his return as a spokesman for God.  This time, though, rather than lavish cathedrals, his flock will have to settle for the barn beside his house:

Last month, Haggard—who declined to be interviewed—opened his home for a prayer meeting.  He expected a dozen people.  More than 100 came, and the Haggards moved the furniture out of the living room to make space.  A week later, he swept out his barn and rented 75 chairs.  When they were filled, people stood against the back walls.

Many were former or current members of his old church who called him Pastor Ted.  They said they had missed him, that he was born to preach—not to sell insurance as he had when he first returned here.  They said they had forgiven what they and Haggard regarded as his sins.  If Haggard can make a comeback, it will be because many evangelical Christians find his story appealing, said Michael Hamilton, an associate history professor at Seattle Pacific University who studies evangelicalism.  “Sin, sorrow, repentance, conversion and trying to live out your new faith—that’s the standard evangelical way to look at one’s life,” he said.

But whether Haggard can achieve his previous success is questionable, said Larry Eskridge, associate director of the Institute for the Study of American Evangelicals at Wheaton College in Illinois.  One sticking point could be that Haggard reportedly did not complete a church-mandated “restoration process.”  New Life officials have said Haggard quit the process in early 2008; he maintains that the church ended the process and that he did not ask to be released from the obligation.

“The larger question is the inability to put himself under someone else’s authority and whether it shows true repentance,” Eskridge said.  Another issue is the nature of the scandal itself.”  Even though evangelical theology doesn’t make distinctions between sins,” Hamilton said, “homosexuality is a hard one for evangelicals to cope with.”

To watch Alexandra Pelosi‘s Trials of Ted Haggard in its entirety, click here.

 
Ted Haggard Returns To The Pulpit In Colorado

Posted by Bradley Novicoff
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12.07.2009
04:33 pm
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Max Blumenthal: The Nightmare of Christianity

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The Nation excerpts Max Blumenthal’s new book Republican Gomorrah: Inside the Movement That Shattered the Party. (Blumenthal is the journalist that uncovered the video of Sarah Palin being anointed by Kenyan “witch hunters.”)

The jacket copy makes it sound like a pure winner. Might have to order this one:

Republican Gomorrah is a bestiary of dysfunction, scandal and sordidmess from the dark heart of the forces that now have a leash on the party. It shows how those forces are the ones that establishment Republicans-like John McCain-have to bow to if they have any hope of running for President. It shows that Sarah Palin was the logical choice of a party in the control of theocrats. But more that just an expose, Republican Gomorrah shows that many of the movement’s leading figures have more in common than just the power they command within conservative ranks. Their personal lives have been stained by crisis and scandal: depression, mental illness, extra-marital affairs, struggles with homosexual urges, heavy medication, addiction to pornography, serial domestic abuse, and even murder. Inspired by the work of psychologists Erich Fromm, who asserted that the fear of freedom propels anxiety-ridden people into authoritarian settings, Blumenthal explains in a compelling narrative how a culture of personal crisis has defined the radical right, transforming the nature of the Republican Party for the next generation and setting the stage for the future of American politics.

The Nation’s excerpt focuses on the damage done to developing minds by batshit insane Republican home-school programs, focusing on school shooter (and Crowley/OTO enthusiast) Matthew Murray.

A few miles down the road from Colorado Springs [a home to James Dobson’s Focus on the Family], in the quiet bedroom community of Eldredge, a deeply disturbed young man named Matthew Murray followed the unfolding debacle at New Life Church [once under the stewardship of Pastor Ted Haggard] with an interest that bordered on obsession. Murray, a sallow-faced, bespectacled 24-year-old, had been indelibly scarred by a lifetime of psychological abuse at the hands of his charismatic Pentecostal parents. Murray’s mind became crowded with thoughts of death, destruction, and the killings he would soon carry out in the name of avenging what he called his “nightmare of Christianity”...

Murray lurched to the polar opposite edge of his parents’ fanatical faith, replacing their Bible as his inspiration with the writings of Aleister Crowley, a flamboyant, self-proclaimed Satanist. The fin de si?ɬ

Posted by Jason Louv
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09.10.2009
06:52 pm
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