I don’t want to drag this out, but it’s been buzzing round my head more than anything else over the last few days (when I haven’t been seething over Driscoll’s response, that is).

There have been a lot of admirable responses from the conservative end of the Christian blogosphere – Challies, for example, is thoughtful without being condemnatory. The thing is, though, everyone seems to be really, seriously missing the point here: everyone’s banging on about sin and fallen nature and total depravity and how we’re all capable of horrific sin – which is true – but, in my opinion, isn’t the issue here.

The crux of the whole thing, I reckon, is this: it seems to me that, in all likelihood, Haggard is gay.

And by that, I don’t mean, he’s occasionally looked at another man and thought “Hey, he’s a good looking guy” – hell, most guys have done that at one time or other, no matter how defiantly straight they are – I mean that he’s probably fundamentally just sexually attracted to men. Unfortunately, he’s trapped within a worldview where he’s been trained to be disgusted by his own desires, forced to repress and deny them, and to basically just live a lie.

Let’s pause for thought, for a moment. The chances are, if you’re reading this, you’re probably straight – by which I mean, the odds are in the favour of that, so my example is going to assume that. Sorry. Okay, so now imagine you’re in a society in which heterosexuality is not the norm – for you, that’s weird, because you’re already not normal; but now imagine you’re in a society in which heterosexuality is not only not normative, but that it is considered unnatural and an “illness” or a product of a “sinful nature”. You’re constantly pressured by your social group into having a relationship with a member of the same sex; you’re forced to shack up with this person, live your life with someone who, fundamentally, you are not attracted to. Eventually, you’re going to crack.

You can bang on about sinful nature and fallenness and how “we’re all Haggard, ultimately” – and to some extent, it’s true – but this isn’t really about that. It’s about a culture in which a man has been forced to deny what he really is, and I can’t – I really mean cannot – accept that the liberty, grace and incomprehensible love of God means denying something that you are.

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