Driscoll: The Gay stops with Haggard

Via Jesus Politics, some thoughts by Mark Driscoll on the Ted Haggard spectacle. The post mostly consists of bits of practical advice on how men of the cloth can keep themselves from cheating on their spouses.

It occurs to me that there are a number of shots I could take here, but I've got reading and (other) writing to do, so I'll just briefly take the snarkiest shot that comes to mind.

In particular, let me call attention to Driscoll's implicit belief that The Gay stops with Haggard, and definitely doesn't exist elsewhere among his putatively straight and non-repressed fellow pastors, and most definitely nowhere around Driscoll personally. This is seen in the curious fact that the post starts by talking about Haggard, who was engaged in some sexual-or-quasi-sexual shenanigans with a gay prostitute, and then quietly shifts over to the topic of pastors (male pastors, naturally) having heterosexual affairs.

Why the change in topic? Does Driscoll not have any ideas on how pastors might improve their ability to resist the temptation to abandon sexual relations with their wives (who, as Driscoll explains, have probably "let themselves go") in favour of some hot man-on-Christian-man action?

In light of such questions, consider Driscoll's note that:

I have been blessed with a trustworthy heterosexual male assistant who can travel with me, meet with me, etc., without the fear of any temptations or even false allegations since we have beautiful wives and eight children between us.

I'm not sure how this is supposed to distinguish them from pre-scandal Haggard: decades into a heterosexual marriage, with 5 kids to show for it.

Alas, if only Haggard had had a truly trustworthy, "heterosexual" male assistant with whom to travel, meet, "etc.", his secret double-life would still be happily out of the media spotlight.

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On a related note, there's a wave of anti-gay marriage action going on in the midterm election. Let us take this occasion to remind ourselves of the two leading theories on why (as I have heard more than one TV preacher state in no uncertain terms) gay marriage is The Number One Threat Facing Civilization As We Know It Today: the Octopus of Marriage theory and the Familion Decay theory.