Plausible Deniability. Or not.

Today we see again how nothing gets a wingnut's knickers in a twist like homosexuality. Ted Haggard, the Evangelical leader who made the news last fall when he was outed by a male prostitute, is back in the headlines, but only so his former colleagues can quickly declare him "cured" and hustle him out of state as part of the Closeted Christian Relocation Program.

"He is completely heterosexual,'' said a Revered Tim Ralph, one of the ministers who counseled Haggard. ''That is something he discovered. It was the acting-out situations where things took place. It wasn't a constant thing.'' Besides, Ralph would have added if only I'd been writing his prepared comments, Haggard doesn't even like Snickers, and all right-thinking people know it really doesn't satisfy.

I'm not exactly sure what "acting-out situations where things took place" is supposed to mean, but a literal take on the phrase "ignore the man behind the curtain" does come to mind. In a related story, Ralph is working with a woman who is a little bit pregnant.

Forgiveness and damage control probably look much the same in this situation, so I suppose I should give Haggard's fellow ministers and the rest of that community the benefit of the doubt. It does strike me, however, that those who have so little interest in examining Haggard's character have so much interest in explaining his predilections. Once again, the specter of homosexuality trumps all. It doesn't matter that he lied about what he did as long as he didn't like doing it.

Meanwhile, Haggard and his wife have declared their intentions to move to either Iowa or Missouri and study--of all things-- psychology. I'd be curious to know what they learn.