Hockey, Nascar & Preachers

If you ask the average person why they watch hockey they will say it's for the fights. Ask the same question about Nascar and the answer will be for the crashes. Ask them why they love to talk about allegations of a preacher having a homosexual affair and the answer will be because he preaches against it so much and now he has to pay the price for being hypocritical.

We as Americans love to see carnage and blood. Whether it be blood on the ice, twisted metal on the track or a life splattered on the altar, the messier the better.

This morning the Colorado Springs radio stations were buzzing with call ins about the recent news of Ted Haggard, which is now becoming a national news story. I listened to everything from "He's a hypocrite and I think he'll get what he deserves when the truth of this story comes out." to "He's a man of God and we should support him in prayer."

Regardless of what you think about him as a person, pastor or quasi-political figure, I find it fascinating how people love to see others suffer. In the same way we used to put others down in high school so we felt bigger than them, people seem to want to put Haggard down so they don't feel the pressure of his statements considered convicting by some and judgemental by others.

Updated news is that while it is now being admitted "some claims are true" his accuser failed a polygraph. Cue the organ music, it sounds like a cliff hanger to me.

My take on this is that whether or not he's guilty, it's a political move. In Colorado Springs, the ballot for Tuesday's election contains an item that makes marriage between a man and a woman only. Haggard has been a huge supporter or this agenda and I find it less than coincidental that this breaks a week before the election.