Mike Jones Talks

A Blue Truck reader (thanks much, bud!) has kindly sent the link to last Wednesday's Feast of Fools radio show, in which Mike Jones discusses both the old and new news about Ted Haggard's twisted sexual escapades, oops, I mean "heterosexual-with-complications" issues.

This reader says he's been acquainted with Mike, and he believes Mike is an honest, sincere fellow who's gotten an undeservedly bad rap from both the MSM as well as the gay press.

You be the judge. Here's the direct link to the .mp3 of the show, which should open in your default player.

I Had to Say Something by Mike Jones is available in hardcover from TLA for $6.99

BTW - A few days ago I noticed ads for tedhaggard dot com were showing up on my blog. Now that was funny. I blocked them, natch.

Sullivan on Haggard

Andrew Sullivan, a devout Catholic, has this very insightful, very moving comment on Ted Haggard, gays, and God:

I feel for Haggard - because he is trapped between who he is and his internalized belief that God cannot love him for who he is. But God can love him for being gay. And does love him for being gay. This is hard, I know. Accepting God's unconditional love for me was the hardest part of keeping hold of my Christian faith. My childhood and adolescence were difficult to the point of agony, an agony my own church told me was my just desert.

But I saw in my own life and those of countless others that the suppression of these core emotions and the denial of their resolution in love always leads to personal distortion and compulsion and loss of perspective. Forcing gay people into molds they do not fit helps no one. It robs them of dignity and self-worth and the capacity for healthy relationships. It wrecks family, twists Christianity, violates humanity. It must end.

Haggard's betrayal, his lies, his compulsions, his deceits are the excruciating function of this human dead end. What we have to do as Christians is open up this always-closing door, to find a way past the abstractions and neuroses of fundamentalism to a more honest and more human acceptance of gay people as God-like. Gay people, like all people, need love. We need family. And yet we are uniquely and cruelly denied these things. And no love and no family can be genuinely based on the deceit or self-hatred that are the alternatives.

That is why I am so insistent on marriage. It alone heals this deep wound and brings gay men and women into the human family where they can finally be allowed to flourish for who they are, rather than to become the contorted, distorted shapes the rest of the world is comfortable with. Anything else actually sustains the wound, because it imprints the indignity and perpetuates the pain.

Sullivan's book, Same-Sex Marriage: Pro and Con, is available from TLA.

Bullshit Alert: Haggard Speaks

Ted Haggard and his wife give an interview to the CBS Early Show in advance of the HBO documentary, The Trials of Ted Haggard. I don't doubt that the guy has suffered and struggled since being outed in 2006 - but as is plainly obvious from watching this clip, neither he nor his wife is dealing with reality here; it's still a great big act, complete with painted-on smiles, to woo back the adoring crowds, if that's possible. "I am a mess" he says, "I don't fit in any of the boxes" - he's not straight, not bisexual, not gay - just "heterosexual with complications." I'm not making this up, guys. But even so, "I'm fine, we're fine, everything's fine" now.

Right. I guess time will tell about that, won't it? You see what a terrible thing the closet does to people's heads. He's still trapped in that self-loathing, deep-denial mindset that some of us were stuck in at age 16 or so - but grew out of and got past. He's still there. I feel sorry for him on one level; but totally, nauseatingly disgusted on another, because this confused, conflicted, and ultimately homophobic message he's putting out has caused and will cause a lot of anguish to other young gay people's lives.

The documentary by director Alexandra Pelosi premiered last night; check here for the schedule of encore broadcasts on HBO.

Meanwhile you can check out this clip from Mike Signorile's recent radio interview with Mike Jones, the Denver escort who outed Haggard in 2006, talking about the other guys who are now coming forward and saying they had sexual relationships with the preacher. You remember that Haggard originally denied even knowing Mike Jones, or ever having had gay sex.

Now just in the last week we learn about these other two young guys, one of whom the church paid a six-figure sum to keep quiet about the matter. I wonder how many more will come out with further revelations about their ex-preacher. The truth will out eventually, it always does.

Today's Quote: Ted Haggard

Three excerpts from a recent interview with the San Francisco Chronicle on an upcoming HBO documentary about his gay sex-and-drugs scandal that wrecked his evangelical career:

"We as Christians know that God hates divorce, and we don't want to be advocates of divorce, but we certainly aren't opposed to there being divorce laws for society. And believers use those divorce laws a lot. There are lots of things that are principles in Scripture that we need to be very thoughtful about whether or not they should be inculcated into civil law."

"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 do that across the board. It's a big change for me."

"I have thoroughly discussed my sex life with my wife and my therapist," he said. "I am very pleased with where I am today and I am completely contented with my relationship with my wife."

Less than an hour after the interview, Haggard's handlers called the reporter back to emphasize that Haggard actually is not in favor of gay marriage.

Go figure. Sad thing, what the closet does to people.