I was reading the latest newsletter from the son of dead religious right bigot Jerry Falwell, and it was talking about the ongoing Ted Haggard fiasco, and Falwell's son wrote the following:
My dad stated from the pulpit on more than one occasion that if he saw a lady from the church standing without an umbrella in a driving rain, he would not pick her up. Dad also never met alone with a woman in his office. He lived in this manner because he did not want to: (1) risk anyone seeing him with another woman, even if he was just doing a good deed by giving her a lift, or (2) risk placing himself in harm’s way in terms of personal temptation. Every pastor should live this way and work always to preserve his testimony at all costs.I'm trying to imagine, in my mind's eye, how this would be virtuous in an old-world, grampa kind of way. But it doesn't sound virtuous. It sounds like virtue turned creepy. You wouldn't stop and help a woman because someone might think you're having an affair (yes, better to worry about your image than actually help another human being in need), and worse (and weirder), you'd be tempted to hit on the damsel in distress. Huh? How about if you drove by and found her beaten on the road, would you stop then? Or would you still be tempted to "do" her?
Again, I get the "good guy" notion underlying this story. Though it is indicative of why religious right bigots are so fearful of gays and other - it appears the thumpers have some rather extreme "temptation" issue of their own, and may be acting out against their own uncontrollable, and rather distasteful, urges when they strike out at gays. This is a perfect example of how the religious right's "good" intentions are filtered through such a hyper-religious filter that they're twisted into kooky, and scary, results. Some days the victim of their good intentions is a poor woman standing on the road in the pouring ray. On another, it's a gay man who simply wants a chance at the American dream.
