What's he on about now?

In case the articles, essays and opinions throughtout this site just weren't enough for you, here's my online diary (a.k.a. 'blog'). It's as close as you'll come to the inside of my head, so don't say I didn't warn you
(and remember, you can always e-mail me if you love or loathe anything you're about to read)...


   Monday, November 06, 2006

   DOOGIE!

But enough about Ted Haggard. Or Mark Foley. Or Ken Mehlman. Or Charlie Crist. Or any other of the seemingly-endless parade of right-wing anti-gay closet-cases (as comedian Bill Maher joked last week, if any more Republicans come out of the closet, they'll have to change their symbol from an elephant to a moth!).

I come not to bury cowards, but to praise Doogie, as actor Neil Patrick Harris came out on Friday. I phoned my friend Tara on Saturday to say hello and see if she'd heard. Before I could say a thing, she said, "Did you hear about Doogie?!" We're fans.

Long ago, Tara and I worked at a movie theatre in Hamilton with a boy named Darryl, of whom Tara was fond and I was...fonder. He was a fantastic guy -- funny and overly-confident but just decent enough to keep from being an outright jerk. It helped that we all thought he looked like Neil Patrick Harris' TV character so the name 'Doogie' stuck to him like glue. Doogie Howser MD was by means great TV but we liked Darryl and became fond of the show by extension (there's a soft spot even now -- Doogie was the first blogger, after all).

It helped that Harris was a wonderful kid actor and, by all accounts, a good guy. After the show ended, he got stuck in that image but, even so, he didn't go bad like the Diff'rent Strokes gang or the Coreys. He did a lot of theatre and later appeared in Starship Troopers, wearing a long black coat and looking like the leader of the Hitler Youth. There, I thought, is an actor desperate to get un-typecast!

Sure enough, he did it, by developing a Shatneresque sense of humour about himself. He first tweaked his image, playing the "white culture" expert in Undercover Brother ("I owe all of you a huge apology. I just watched this show...Roots? Maybe you've heard of it?"); he then destroyed his image, playing a horny, drugged-out asshole named Neil Patrick Harris in Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle ("Yeah, I've been craving burgers, too. Furburgers. Come on, dudes, let's pick up some trim at a strip club. The Doogie line always works on strippers!"). The producers of the sitcom How I Met Your Mother were looking for a Jack Black-type actor to play Barney, a disturbingly-cheerful womanizer, but they liked the 'White Castle' bit enough to audition Harris and he won them over. Barney's a jerk but Harris' dorky charm makes him funny and oddly endearing.

I'm whittering on like a fan but here's the point: Neil Patrick Harris has paid his dues and has a solid career. He's only 33 and he's on his second hit TV show, making lots of money and playing a wildly-popular ladies' man. Actors, singers, athletes (anyone making money, really) are only allowed to come out after their careers have run dry, not right in the middle, so following some press speculation (you just can't trust those Canadians), his publicist issued the usual weird Hollywood non-denial: "Neil Patrick Harris is not of that persuasion."

I saw that in the paper last week and was disappointed. I prefer it when actors just avoid the question rather than lie -- kind of like how Ricky Martin was interesting when people wondered if he was gay, as opposed to how boring he became when he kept going on about the ladies in that completely hypothetical 'who are you kidding?' way. It's sad. In Harris' case, the denial was especially pointless, considering how people had been commenting for a while now on the guy he keeps being seen with around New York. I could understand why the publicist would try to suppress the story but it irritated me that, in 2006, a TV actor still can't say he's gay.

Happily, it seems that Harris was annoyed, too. Rather than start playing that fame game -- hiding his boyfriend, showing up at parties with random women, jumping on sofas and yelling about his lady love -- he silenced his handlers and simply issued the briefest, classiest statement possible:

The public eye has always been kind to me, and until recently I have been able to live a pretty normal life. Now it seems there is speculation and interest in my private life and relationships.

So, rather than ignore those who choose to publish their opinions without actually talking to me, I am happy to dispel any rumors or misconceptions and am quite proud to say that I am a very content gay man living my life to the fullest and feel most fortunate to be working with wonderful people in the business I love.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how it's done. I can only hope the Republican party is paying attention. Bravo, Doog!

Labels: back in the day, evolution, friends, homo-a-go-go, movies, the 80s, tributes, TV

Obviously, I've been turning cartwheels over this week's revelation that Ted Haggard, leader of the 30-million-member National Association of Evangelicals, bought crystal meth from the gay prostitute he's been visiting for three years. With the US midterm elections tomorrow, it's a political jackpot and the metaphorical culmination of everything I've been ranting about for years!

So why does it make me feel so sad?

Well, first off, I feel sorry for his wife and kids.
Mrs. Haggard must obviously be devastated and, as for the kids, it's hard enough on children when they learn that Dad lied to them about Santa Claus; what if Dad lied about everything he believed in and everything he taught you?

But I actually feel sorry for Ted Haggard.
Watching clips of the infamous interview (with his wife and kids in the car!!!), the troubling face-off with hectoring atheist Richard Dawkins or the truly-terrifying excerpt from Jesus Camp is all creepy enough, but reading transcripts of the prostitute detailing their time together in karmic 'Bill-Clinton-Starr-Report' fashion is totally gruesome.

Last year, Harpers did a lengthy profile on Haggard called Soldiers of Christ that I found profoundly unsettling; now it's also profoundly sad. The man is clearly a seething mass of frustrated contradictions:

The fact is, I am guilty of sexual immorality, and I take responsibility for the entire problem. I am a deceiver and a liar. There is a part of my life that is so repulsive and dark that I’ve been warring against it all of my adult life.

For extended periods of time, I would enjoy victory and rejoice in freedom. Then, from time to time, the dirt that I thought was gone would resurface, and I would find myself thinking thoughts and experiencing desires that were contrary to everything I believe and teach. Through the years, I’ve sought assistance in a variety of ways, with none of them proving to be effective in me. Then, because of pride, I began deceiving those I love the most because I didn’t want to hurt or disappoint them.

I don't hear the words of a 48-year-old right-wing Christian leader in this statement Haggard made on Sunday, I hear the unhappy rationalizations of a gay teenager. Maybe I'm projecting here but this statement sounds an awful lot like what I was writing in my diary at 17. I wish someone could've taken Ted aside and said, "You're not repulsive and dark -- you're a homo!"

I even began to feel sorry for his followers. I can't imagine how confusing this must be for them. When Bill Clinton admitted to having sex with "that woman," I felt disappointed in him and frustrated by his lack of control. But when you get right down to it, Clinton wasn't part of a massive political movement blaming all the evils of society on young Jewish interns, was he? That kind of disconnect between Haggard's private actions and public rabble-rousing is the sticking point here and, unfortunately, where my sympathies end.

You see, I'd like to think to something good could come from this, that perhaps the evangelical movement will understand that splitting the world into 'us' versus 'them' never works because there's no distinction. 'They' are 'us' and 'us' are 'they.' I'd like to think that this incident may help evangelicals understand that homosexual is less important than the way people channel them. I want them to see that allowing a self-hating gay man to hide by marrying a woman and having five children will ultimately ruin all of their lives. I'd like them to accept that allowing such a person to be honest, to find and live peacefully with another man, would be far more beneficial to society than the sad freakshow we've had to witness this week. I would like to think that but the odds are unlikely when the conclusions are already drawn. Mollie at GetReligion quotes from an e-mail she received, comparing openly-gay Anglican bishop Gene Robinson to Ted Haggard:

A pastor is married for years, has children, runs a successful church, advances in his denomination/sector of Christianity, and then “finds himself” and abandons wife and children for a live-in situation with another man. His reward? Consecration as a bishop in the Protestant Episcopal Church of America and wide-ranging media praise
...
Another pastor apparently is married for years, has children, builds and runs a a successful church, advances in his denomination/sector of Christianity, fights temptation and loses, stays with his family, and when the dam breaks, is crucified in the press as his reward.

This to me is an insane comparison. Gene Robinson divorced his wife three years before he got involved with his current partner. He and his wife are still friends because he was honest with his family and his community through the whole 'coming out' process. However one might feel about Robinson's status as a bishop, anyone who can't see a difference between the way he's dealt with his sexuality and the way Haggard has is either intellectually or spiritually bankrupt. On that note, Canada's own poster boy for nepotism David Frum (creator of the hit catchphrase "Axis of Evil") then chimed on along similar lines:

Consider the hypothetical case of two men. Both are inclined toward homosexuality. Both from time to time hire the services of male prostitutes. Both have occasionally succumbed to drug abuse.

One of them marries, raises a family, preaches Christian principles, and tries generally to encourage people to lead stable lives.

The other publicly reveals his homosexuality, vilifies traditional moral principles, and urges the legalization of drugs and prostitution.
...
If a religious leader has a personal inclination toward homosexuality - and nonetheless can look past his own inclination to defend the institution of marriage and to affirm its benefits for the raising of children - why should he likewise not be honored for his intellectual firmness and moral integrity?

Where's the "intellectual firmness" in Haggard hiring a prostitute and buying crystal meth? Where's the "moral integrity" in doing so while denying people the right to marry? And lying to your own wife and children? And I love the way the argument is framed as either 'stay in the closet for the children' or 'wallow in drugs and prostitutes' -- because no middle ground is possible, right? I can't believe that Frum would try to peddle this kind of crap, but then I read this take from The Christian Post:

While Haggard has only partially admitted guilt, the situation in its entirety is a stark reminder of man’s sinfulness and a dark exposure of how deeply the sin of homosexuality has taken root in the American society. If the accusations are indeed true, now would be the time for the Evangelical community look within its own walls and battle against the culture of sin that looms before the Church of Christ.

Yes, I'd like to think something good could come from the sad story of Ted Haggard but it seems a lot of other lessons have been learned, all of them wrong and none of them helpful.

Labels: America, family, homo-a-go-go, politics, religion, repair

I admit it -- I have a sick fascination with bigots. Most sane people just avoid them, for fear of being tainted, but I have this perverse desire to try and understand where that all that hatred and fear comes from. Most times, however, I just end up hating and fearing them. Is that a cycle? Am I a hater if I hate the hater?

I ask because liberal radio host Stephanie Miller received a letter from "Sock," a faithful Fox News viewer after she did a guest-spot. She apparently said something to tick him off, as the death-threat letter he sent her is full of words you certainly won't hear on TV (even Fox) and, oddly, his home phone number.

So she called him -- and I still can't decide if the conversation is horrifying or hilarious. Is it wrong to call up and harass a pathetic, bigoted old man because he mailed you a death threat? Or is it justice?

Labels: insanity, introspective, media

Somewhere between genius and insanity lies...Cat Head Theatre:

Labels: silliness