King: Were these feelings about men, were these feelings that you had for a long time?
Haggard: Well, the first I remember them is in high school. And — but I never acted on them. I married Gayle in college. It was a wonderful relationship with Gayle through the years. And — but I would, I’d wrestle with it and I would have to deal with it and struggle with them. And then I reached a point where I…
King: Gave in?
King: Did you not, though, preach against homosexuality?
Haggard: Yes, I did. And I…
King: Wasn’t that hypocritical?
Haggard: It was hypocritical. Absolutely, it was. And the reason I did was because I have a belief system that I still have. I believe the Bible is the word of God. I believe Jesus is the son of God. I believe in being born again, those things that are fundamental to Christianity.
And I knew that the Bible was a set of ideals. The Bible says God hates divorce, but we know that lots of fine, wonderful people have to go through the horrible experiences of divorce.
We know that the Bible says pray continually. And I’m not giving it as an excuse, but I knew — I knew that the Bible taught that sexuality was — I felt like God’s plan was for sexuality to be in a monogamous, heterosexual marriage. And I wanted that for myself. I wanted to please God. But at the same time, I had these other things going on and I ended up violating my wife and family and everything.
King: And since you didn’t know why you had them going on — no one knows why they are…
Haggard: Right. No, we didn’t know.
King: So you didn’t choose it. You didn’t say, boy, I want to be — have these feelings.
Haggard: Right. Exactly.
Read the transcript of the whole interview here.
One Comment
He says so much, yet so little.
And i just find it interesting about his comments on the “choice” of being gay. One might think, logically speaking, that if being gay weren’t a choice then God made you that way. And further, if being gay wasn’t a choice then it would be different than adultery, stealing and murder…which, I think, would put it somewhere in the “forgivable” category or, perhaps not needing God’s forgiveness at all.
That’s of course, is if you believe “the Lord is the maker of all” (Ecclesiastes 11:5).
And we see that the Bible also says, “He must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind.”
So are we to believe that if God makes us this way, as Ted Haggard says, that we’re to believe that God has wanted us this way? And since we’re not to doubt God, then we must trust that his decision to create people this way…that it’s not as huge of a sin that Haggard suggests.