Why is it that some people can only “see” homosexuality for what it is when it happens to them or someone they love?
| Pastor Ted Haggard, who was exiled from his Colorado church in 2006 in a gay sex scandal, said this week that the incident has altered his views on religion and the culture wars. “The church told me to go to hell,” he said. “I now know more about hatred and judgment than ever before, and I know it doesn’t help.”
In his first interviews since the scandal, Haggard, who now sells life insurance, said his marriage is stronger than ever, but that “sexuality is complex and confusing” and “I still have temptations from time to time.” He also said he no longer opposed gay marriage, and that he’d learned that praying did not make his attraction to men disappear. |
Really, praying doesn’t change your sexual orientation? Really??? How insightful.
From the Wikipedia entry about him:
| After the scandal was publicized, Haggard entered three weeks of intensive counseling, overseen by four ministers. In February 2007, one of those ministers, Tim Ralph, said that Haggard “is completely heterosexual.”[3] Ralph later said he meant that therapy “gave Ted the tools to help to embrace his heterosexual side.”[4] As of early 2009, Haggard continues to receive counseling, and now he says that he is “heterosexual with issues.” [5] |
A “heterosexual with issues?” I’ll say.
A friend, and regular reader, of my blog (Thanks, Steve!) sent me an instant message telling me that my blog was worth millions, pointing me to this website, which estimates the value (in US dollars) of websites. I ran both my blog URL (http://dailyafirmation.livejournal.com) and my home page (http://www.nematome.info) with these results:
The higher value of the blog is undoubtedly due to the fact that it’s part of a high-traffic domain: livejournal.com. It’s still fun to look at, though.
I met a friend of mine for lunch today who has been identified in an IBM “resource action” (read: layoff), and we talked about work, lifestyle changes, what’s important in life, happiness… you know light topics such as those.
Later in the afternoon, I met a Twitter friend, @justis, and his wife @flowerncsu at Helios, where after Justis had a quick lunch, his wife waited there to meet a friend, and he and I went for a nice downtown Raleigh walk.
We passed by The Roast Grill at ten minutes before closing, and I had to take a peek in 1) because I’ve never seen that place open though I saw it probably over 200 days of last year’s 360, since it’s right across from the bar I go to all the time, and 2) because it was just featured (or taped to be featured shortly) on the Food Network.
Robert arrived at around 5:30, and he fired up the grill, where (speaking of hot dogs) he cooked hot dogs for us in the glorious, glorious weather we had today. I prepared the buns and the potato salad, which consisted of opening the package of buns and scooping the potato salad out of the container.
We fell asleep listening to the audio recording of David Sedaris‘ latest book, “When You’re Engulfed in Flames,” not because it was boring, but because we were tired.
Dancing was fun enough tonight, though there were some rumblings from the bar manager complaining about the crowd (or rather lack thereof) of Wednesday nights. Since there are generally four patrons in the bar and four or five dancers, my sentiment is, “Let him stop the dancing; then he’ll have four people in there on Wednesday nights instead of eight or nine.”
He also mentioned that we (the line dancers) don’t “mingle enough with the crowd.” I really didn’t know we worked there. I must be sure to check my W-2 forms for 2008 and see if I have one from Flex.
We went over to CCs a little later, where I hadn’t been on a Saturday night since the piano player asked me, “Would you sing a little bit softer? You’re throwing me off.” But, I’m not bitter.
When we first arrived, there were 7 or 8 women, two of whose dresses were so short that you could see their coochies (white, cotton panties, if you’re into that sort of thing, and believe me, 99% of the people in this bar are not) while they did all these suggestive dances, gyrating and squatting up and down against a pole that was only in their minds. As it turned out, one of them, the one in the fishnet stockings was a drag queen.
All I could think of was the Six Feet Under episode that starts off with a bunch of girls whooping it up and having a ball in a limo, until one of them opens the moonroof and sticks her head out. If you watched that show it all, then you can guess what happened to her.