Rev. Erudite Redneck, B.S., B.S., M.A., M.Div.

"Jesus taught Equality, Justice and Obligation. We Accept Jesus' Call to Love One Another and to Welcome All God's Children at the Table.

"As Christians, we are all called to follow Jesus' commandment to 'Love one another as I have loved you.' (John 15:12) Jesus welcomed women, tax collectors, Pharisees, and lepers at his table. His behavior indicted those who inflicted hurt on others as they piously honored the purity codes of his day. Following Jesus' example, we declare that using the popular 'purity codes' of today, such as sexual orientation, to ostracize and marginalize people is immoral.

"Gay and lesbian people and heterosexual people are all children of God. We all labor together in our places of employment. We all worship together in our churches (except in those churches where gays and lesbians have been banished from the congregation). On April 15, we are all taxpayers. As God's children and as American citizens, gays and lesbians deserve legal protection from bigotry and discrimination.

"Discrimination against gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgenders - especially legally sanctioned discrimination - violates the Gospel-based values of justice and equality for all people. We support equality under the law for all Americans, regardless of sexual orientation."

-- Christian Alliance for Progress
 

E.R., Haggard cannot come out of the closet without admitting that a good 2/3 of his theology is wrong. If he did come out, folks on the right would condemn him for "abandoning his wife and children to pursue the homosexual agenda."

It would be interesting to know just WHERE he's planning on getting an M.A. in psychology since both the American Psychological Association and the American Psychiatric Association long ago dropped same-sex orientation from their diagnostics manual as either a neurosis or psychosis.

I feel sorry for Ted. I truly do. But I feel sorrier for his wife.

I watched my youngest sister marry a gay guy (3 of us sibs tried to tell her but she swore we were wrong!) and when he finally came out and left, it tipped her over the edge to fundamentalism! She immediately joined the Christian Coalition!???!!
 

The closing argument in a case on Boston Legal last night said the truth about this: One cannot be cured of homosexuality, because it's not a disease. It's a way of life for millions of Americans.

Unfortunately, some people, even clergy -- do we even go to the Catholic Church? -- believe prayer and therapy can help overcome the urges of homosexuality. The truth is, prayer and therapy can help sustain any urges, but I don't believe they can make me gay, just as I don't believe prayer and therapy can make a gay person heterosexual.

Please, though, don't call him Ted. Just call him Haggard
 

But that would besmirch the character of Merle!
 

Oh, Merle's character's never been besmirched? Gimme a break.
 

It ain't a "way of Life" and it ain't curable. It is a genetic disposition, which is in fact a range of pre-dispositions from obtusely hetero to obtusely homo and everywhere in between. Homosexuality is present in almost every mammal species yet studied for it. It is a "lizard brain" (medual oblongata) function, not a life choice.
So sure Theodore (how about that name teditor?)can not be cured, much less in just 3 weeks. But Teddy , like many others who pervert the concept
of "Evangelical", lives in a Fairy Tale World. A world of magic and fantasy, that would surely crumble if they began to admit how much animal prevails in them.
Psychology Degree: Bob Jones University for one.
But fear not, the Colorado Springs powers that be will not be deceived by his claims of cleanlyness. He is tainted and cast out and shall not be allowed to return. It would be bad business.
But in America, he could start his own thing again. We are the land of the suckers and opportunity after all.
 

Ted Haggard should keep his mouth shut? You are now advocating censorship? What about free speech, ER? Is that only if you agree with him?

You know, often I have wished you would shut up, but I've never told you that.
 

Mark, ole ER (for that matter all of us) is just like that TV set of yours. You don't like what it says, turn it off. It is your initiative to read the stuff here.
So don't do it.

I was wondering how large a following Teddy would have if he did come out and then start a gay ministry? But then again maybe he is too ingrained in his current thinking to depart from it. But it might be a "profitable" venture.

As for keeping quite ER, I am all for people speaking their minds even if they don't got one. That way you know where they stand and how much you can trust them.
 

Mark, again, your denseness is astounding. If you don't know censorship from self-control, you should shut up, yourself.

I mean Ted Haggard should shut his own mouth, which would be self-control, not that someone should shut it for him, which would be censorship -- or physical violence.

Here's an idea, Mark. When you blog, keep Google running AND a basic dictionary handy and maybe you can keep up.
 

Ya know, I'm sorry if I seem to always be mean to Mark. But dang.

He boasts about his ignorance, he brags about his lack of education, but he acts like he knows a lot about everything when he knows almost nothing about anything that he hasn't seen with his own dang eyes, or done with his own dang hands, which he thinks is admirable but is not.

This rantlet is based on a couple of years of reading his "ignorant" and "uneducated" posts and comments, of which he truly is proud. The comment on this post is just a case in point.

We have a bloghistory, in other words. And my patience is done.

He's thick and he's proud of it. Forgive me if I take a certain perverse pleasure in obliging him by pointing it out!