ironman

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-...r_b_33279.html

I remember that some time ago, someone posted about a guy who was going to make public that a prominent man was gay if he didn't come out in some time frame. The motivation for such thing: that this "in the closet man", was publicly opposing to gay marriage and condemning gay relationships.
Now we all know who this guy was, Ted Haggard, one of the 25 most influential Evangelicals in the US and with more power in Washington.
Anyway, this thread is not to judge Haggard's fell down or the male prostitute's actions, but to find who's blame is it that Haggard turned out to be gay and drug addict.
In the story i linked, another Prominent Pastor seems to see some responsability in Haggard's wife and the fact that she is, in few words, lazy and unatractive.This does in fact strike me. One should expect that people with the "moral standards" that these pastors preach to others and let everybody beleive they have, would place responsability where it belongs: Haggard himself. The fact that her wife may be lazy and unattractive does not justifies that he is out having gay sex and doing drugs, if this were like that, as the author notes, a third of all middle age married couples, would be doing drugs and having gay sex.

Bottom line, once again, i think this is the now more often typical case of not taking responsability for own actions and the stupid necessity of everybody to find responsability (through seudo-psycology) for someone's mistakes in third person's actions. "The guy killed 4 in a convenience store assault".- it's not his fault, is society's fault for not giving him enough opportunities. "The dude raped 5 women and molested chilren".- you should understand that it's not his fault, he was raped by his uncle when he was 7.

It's not hard to understand that generalized attitude, when the supposed moral pilars of society do the exact same thing, at least he didn't said that the "devil" made him do it.

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If I agreed with you we´d both be wrong

FoolThemAll

Maybe you're talking about a different post, but the most recent one we had on the subject turned out to involve a politician by the name of Craig.

http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpost.php?p=2138733&postcount=40

As to the subject... yeah, this is a fairly disgusting attempt to shift some of the responsibility that belongs entirely to Haggard. "She wasn't responsible for the adultery... but she was responsible for helping him avoid the adultery." What puzzles me is why it's another pastor that's attempting it. Is he trying to reduce the bad PR of the hypocrisy? Trying to avoid the loss of too many fence-sitters who are moved by hypocrisy arguments?

If that's it, well, not only are his tactics disgusting, they just plain suck. He would've been much better off going with something like, "even religious leaders are imperfect, sometimes heartbreakingly so. But that doesn't lessen the importance or truth of the standards that they failed to meet. We should learn what we can from his mistakes and use what we learn to live better lives, rather than pretending that those failings invalidate the Christian way of life." You know, something that doesn't make the wife partly responsible for the husband staying faithful. If you want a divorce, get it. Don't be deceitful about it.

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I wonder if we're stuck in Rome.

Lady Sage

Its His fault. He knew what risks would be involved. He chose to do it anyway. I actually find the whole thing quite funny to be honest.

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If only closed minds came with closed mouths.
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analog

I think the funniest part of it is that this guy is still refusing to see the point- it's not that she's lazy or unattractive... she could be Angelina Jolie or Natalie Portman... he's gay.

roachboy

and here i thought the funny part was the crank: it helped me rethink the enthusiasm of televangelists in general.

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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

ratbastid

I think it was a not-too-subtle message to his own wife...

thingstodo

Can't agree more here! And the coverup is always worse than the actual situation. Just ask Tricky Dick.

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Gilda

This is, unfortunately, still a widespread attitude, that a wife who isn't sufficiently attractive or attentive to her husbands needs sexually is somehow to blame for his infidelity.

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Elphaba

Phsst...My psych chair promoted the same thing.

ngdawg

This is ridiculous:
It's from AOL news, so linking would be worthless here ....
So...stretched thin by demands turned him gay? Add the fat lazy wife....
well, it's no wonder!!!

Why are people making excuses for this guy, regardless of what the excuse is? He was living a total lie, was an 'advisor' to the White House, preached against the 'sins' of homosexuality, among other things and gets exposed as an utter fraud. But, sure....it's the wife's fault.

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Don't blame me. I didn't vote for either of'em.

MSD

Yet another case of hypocritical extremism caused by indoctrination into illogical and unnatural thought patterns. It seems that this kind of reaction-formation is a common psychological condition among the most vocal among groups that condemn that which is not choice.


I wonder who might be busy lubing up a big purple jelly dong behind a bent-over Fred Phelps as I type this.

pan6467

It was God's fault. God told him to have sexual relations with that man. That he could play victim and show the world that even a man as faithful and as loyal to God has vices. God told him he can write a book, go on talk shows make more money and have more fame than he ever dreamed of.... and all he had to do was have sexual relations with that man and claim to be a victim of a lazy wife, alcohol, drugs, greed, lust and whatever else he can dream up.

I look forward to to seeing him on Jerry Springer.

Male: "You paid me money to suck your....beeeeeeeep"

Rev. Haggard: "Yeah well you're gay and going to Hell."

Jerry: "Let's bring out the wife."

Wife runs over kicks Male prostitue in the balls and connects with a right cross.

Wife: "You ruined my marriage. We were having sex one night in the missionary position, cause that's how God fearing people do it.... and my man calls out "beeep..... my.... beeep" and I said no f'n way would I put that thing in my mouth. I didn't rise above the trailer park into our 2.5 million dollar mansion to do what I could do I on the streets. Then he storms out and comes home smelling of liquor and cheap Old Spice telling me he found someone that would."

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I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

blahblah454

AHAHAHA!!! Thanks for that, good laugh before bed.

florida0214

If it was his fat lazy wife then why not go to an attractive female? The point of the matter is that a very promienant promoter of Christianity is a homosexual.
THis will do nothing to promote the religion and will be seen as way to make atheist arguments stronger. If this were a congressman or CEO of a secular organization it would not be getting so much media. It's only a story because it advances the liberal medias point.
He is still wrong and nothing can change that.

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"Two men: one thinks he can. One thinks he cannot. They are Both Right."

pan6467

If a religion is strong it will stand on it's own credences and faiths, doesn't matter what the leaders do. Somehow I believe Christianity will survive this. Perhaps, people who tend to believe this show their own questioning of faith. All this shows me is that perhaps people need to truly read the Bible and what Jesus said and come to their own decisions and not base their lives on what another man interprets the Bible to say.

I don't give a damn what the leaders of any church do, just don't be passing judgement and quoting scripture to me if you haven't cleaned out the log in your own eye.

I do however believe, this may weaken the political stances of these people, and that is a good thing.

It's the scandal of the moment so it will get hot press. I am amazed at the "It's only a story because ....." excuses.

Let's see..... Clinton gets a hummer in the Oval Office and gets fried in public everyday for a solid 2 years, but it's a liberal media.

Let's see this very influential, powerful guy is very vocal against a certain lifestyle and people, then gets caught and admits he participated in that lifestyle while preaching against it...... isn't a true scandal, nope, it's the "liberal Media" pushing forth some kind of agenda.... what that agenda is only great wise men like Limbaugh, Pat Robertson and the Holy Tabernacle Choir will understand... but they will explain it to us.

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I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

MSD

I can't roll my eyes up far enough to express my opinion on the liberal media argument. A prominent person in a prominent organization has been outed as a hypocrite in regard to one of the organization's main focal points. If you honestly believe that this gets media attention because of a liberal bias, you need to ditch the right-wing persecution complex.

florida0214

Is the Media truly liberal or do they simply report the news and nothing more? D o they leave the news up for interpretation?
Does the media simply take the opposing side of whoever is in power at that time? Sorry to hijack this thread I can start a new one if everybody would like.

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"Two men: one thinks he can. One thinks he cannot. They are Both Right."

NCB

Its far easier to live up to your moral standards when you have very few if any morals to begin with. Sayin'

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StanT

Bullshit

There's nothing on earth my wife could do that would make a hairy ass and a dick appealing to me.

cyrnel

Either of those ladies would... well... if you can't turn a gay man straight they'd at least turn a gay man lesbian.

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There are a vast number of people who are uninformed and heavily propagandized, but fundamentally decent. The propaganda that inundates them is effective when unchallenged, but much of it goes only skin deep. If they can be brought to raise questions and apply their decent instincts and basic intelligence, many people quickly escape the confines of the doctrinal system and are willing to do something to help others who are really suffering and oppressed." -Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media, p. 195

Toaster126

While she's not to blame, she shouldn't be surprised. The cheater needs to take responsibility for being a fucking cheater, true. But the other party needs to take responsibility for their own failures as well.

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"The question isn't who is going to let me, it's who is going to stop me." (Ayn Rand)
"The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers." (M. Scott Peck)

roachboy

i am still much more interested in the crank.

what exactly is the role of methamphetamines in fundamentalist christian culture?
when i was of it for a while in my wayward youth, i remember people being all zippy--they said it was because they were "high on jesus" but i always wondered if that was some kind of euphemism...because they these folk usually seemed kinda manic for kinda long periods and had cycles of jesus interactions that didnt quite line up.

i left before it could be determined if i was cool or not, i guess so i never found out.... but i have always wondered about it.

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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

host

We've kicked that question around, some.....

http://www.google.com/search?q=host+...e=off&filter=0

newshoes

Traditionally, in the world of social psychology, the "fundamental attribution error" describes a person's tendency to see his own actions as a product of the environment, and a third party's as due to some innate personality trait. That's not to argue that one is correct and the other is wrong, but i thought it'd contrast the "pseudo-psychology" of seeking external explanations for a person's behaviour.

Whilst i don't doubt that some people argue as you criticise, i personally see a distinction between assigning responsibility and identifying reasons why people behave as they do. For example, i don't think it's unreasonable to cite poverty as a factor in crime. That doesn't mean i support letting criminals with low incomes off the hook, but it does mean that if i'm asked for opinions on how to reduce crime, i'd look at reducing poverty.

Maybe it's a slightly bizarre distinction i'm trying to draw, and i don't think i really understand it myself. Perhaps the best way i can think about it is the effect of "blame" on a person*: if i know my community will disapprove of something, i'm more likely to refrain from doing it. But this is where i step into the world of ill-informed psuedo-pyscho-philosophical babble. Free will, eh? What's the deal with that?

*edit: there's also the whole "nature vs. nuture" thing to think about too.

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