A Matter of Life and Death

We live in a time where we assume certain evils (slavery and the Holocaust come to mind) just will not be replicated or committed in this day and age. After all, we're in the 21st century. We're more enlightened. The world is more integrated and linked than ever. How can something glaringly base and wrong be propagated?

Well, it's 2010 but some things remain the same.

Uganda leaders are proposing a bill that would impose the death penalty on some gay men and women who live there. Yes, sexual orientation would be punishable by death.

It disturbs me somewhat to put a fine point on it, but the proposed legislation specifically targets those who are guilty of "aggravated homosexuality", when one of the participants is a minor, HIV-positive or a "serial offender", which basically includes all of those who simply live as gay men and women without choosing celibacy. And get this: the proposed bill would propose a sentence of no less than three years for someone who knows of "homosexual activity" and fails to report it to the authorities withing 24 hours.

Uganda's ethics and integrity minister (gotta love the irony) has argued that, realistically, the punishment would likely end up being merely life in prison. Well, I guess I was overreacting.

A leading evangelical in Uganda is leading a "million man" march on February 17 to promote the bill and denounce the "scourge" of homosexuality.

The United Nations, not to mention various leaders and gay groups in western countries, have expressed outrage at this. They rightly see that if criminalizing people based on race and gender is considered unthinkable even in most third world countries, how can a notion like this even be remotely entertained?

Perhaps the most disturbing response is the slow one, or lack of one, from U.S. evangelicals, many of whom over the years have forged close spiritual and financial ties with their biblicially conservative African brothers, especially those in Episcopal churches that have been the loudest bill supporters.

Prominent pastors like Rick Warren notoriously kept out of this for months before finally condemning the death penalty notion. Even more conservative American religious leaders have said nothing. Some of the Christian groups most publicly tied to Uganda have been the quietest. Joyce Meyer Ministries, Oral Roberts University, the College of Prayer in Atlanta — all have close ties and declined to express reservations about the death penalty.

Everyone is entitled to his or her view of homosexuality in light of faith or the Bible. But surely, the taking of someone's life because of who he or she is, is a heinous act that should be without debate.

This reminded me of James Byrd, an African-American Texas man who in 1996 was beaten and chained to a truck where he was dragged for three miles to his death by three white racists. The lynching-by-dragging ignited a firestorm but it also raised fears that something like this could happen in that day and age. Then Matthew Shepard was beaten and left hanging to die on a fence post in Wyoming. Suddenly, American society was face-to-face with the hatred in its midst that supposedly was of its past.

This week Uganda's president called for the bill to be withdrawn, saying it was harming the country's foreign policy. The sponsor has refused to do so, and it is expected to be considered in February.

In the age of Obama and a supposedly post-racial society, we can't forget that base fears and hatreds will spawn atrocious acts and policies. And we can't take for granted that we won't need to be vigilant in guarding against all forms of discrimination.

Even if we reach 2810, there will be no utopia. Not as long as there is human nature.

Haggard Faces

Lately, I’ve been trying to figure out who’s been making the biggest media tour of self-promotion under the guise of justice and truth-telling – Ted Haggard or Rod Blagojevich?

Since Blago is a pompous windbag who was impeached and is really yesterday’s news, let’s go to the Colorado pastor who famously was evicted from his flock after revelations of gay affairs that he insist do not make him gay. See, isn’t that more fun?

In case you don’t own a television, Haggard has been on Oprah, Larry King, and other news outlets on the heels of an HBO documentary on his life directed by Nancy Pelosi’s daughter. The married evangelical is openly calling himself a liar and a hypocrite for anti-gay declarations and fighting gay marriage when it turns out he had sex with men.

In 2006, Haggard confessed to a money-for-sex relationship with former escort Mike Jones, from whom he also purchased crystal meth. Haggard was forced out of New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Colo., and the National Association of Evangelicals. Meanwhile, it was recently revealed that Haggard was sexually involved with former church member Grant Haas.

It’s interesting that Haggard’s self-flagellation doesn’t extend to his admitting that he’s anything near gay. Instead, he has gone one to say that he is “heterosexual with homosexual attachments” or “heterosexual with complications.” Coy? Oy!

Haggard reminds me of presumably straight men who sleep with men but don’t see themselves as gay. For them, dalliances with men are just sex and not any point of identity. The irony is that they almost totally define gay men by their sexuality.

Gay critics (deservedly) have scorched Haggard with fire-breathing criticisms. I despise his character too, but I’m going to go out on a limb and say I feel sorry for him.

I don’t mean sorry as in I would give him a hug and say everything will be alright. I mean pity that he’s in deep denial and contorting his true nature to where his insides are more of a puzzle than his replies to interviewers’ questions. He’s creating his own Dante’s inferno without the Dante.

Even while Haggard praises his wife and makes pains to say he has a happy marriage and still wants his wife sexually, he still admits he’ s attracted to men – but he is no longer acting on it or trying not to, anyway. Perhaps the years in a religious environment that is virulently anti-gay, he morphed into a homophobic crusader even as the elephant in the room grew louder. Or maybe he thought any life without wife and kids seemed not normal and unspeakable.

However free he may sound, I know he in anguish. Those “feelings” won’t go away because they are a part of who he is. Haggard is just one soldier in an army of men who lead double lives and for whatever reason, can’t bring themselves to acknowledge and embrace gayness they have. For them, sexuality is never free because it’s bound by doubt and shame. He’s not overcoming anything so much as supplanting everything.

Some people are angry that the documentary seems to paint him in a sympathetic light. It does to a large degree. But it also gives us the picture of a man perpetually in conflict, trying in vain to convince people – maybe more so himself – that he’s not “really gay.”

So he can get a six-figure book deal, a talk show, and maybe a new church. But he doesn’t really win. As long as he tries to cocoon himself in a façade of heterosexuality, he will continue to break his own heart every day.