100 percent not gay

MANIFESTO

I've been remiss in not following the Ted Haggard debacle more closely, but let me try to make up for it.

I'm sick and tired of sanctimonious morons bashing gays when, in fact, they're homosexuals themselves. The fact that The Reverend Mr. Haggard ingested crystal meth while having his jollies with his boy toy makes this abominable situation even worse.

And what's the reaction when these pecksniffs are caught with their hands in the cookie jar, so to speak? They go right back to trying to appear as bastions of rectitude.

Thus it is with The Reverend Mr. Haggard, who, mirabile dictu, has now been completely cured of his errant ways in a mere three weeks.

"He is completely heterosexual," said the Rev. Tim Ralph of Larkspur, Colo., one of four pastors who supervised Haggard's "restoration." "That is something he discovered. It was the acting-out situations where things took place. It wasn't a constant thing."

Oh, I get it: He wasn't gay; it was just behavior he exhibited. This kind of blather is reminiscent of Fred Rogers' deathless contribution to psychology: "It's you I like; it's not the things you do." Of course, Mr. Rogers was speaking to three-year-olds. In the Haggard instance, it seems like three-year-olds are speaking to us.

Happy Valentines Day, everyone. Drive carefully.