This is a plea for tolerance and forgiveness, for the basic understanding that we are all human and that all of us from time to time falter.
There has been much discussion recently about the loss of civility, the fundamental human decency that holds society together. Nowhere has this been more evident than in politics.
These days there is not only differences between political parties over policies and programs, there is deep animosity toward those who disagree with rigid, orthodox articles of political faith. So-called “values” language – used with regard to social issues such as abortion, the merger of church and state, and stem-cell research – has become coded language to distinguish between the saved and the damned.
To disagree over such issues is to be met with a wall of hostility, suspicion, intolerance and even hatred. This is a formula for a medieval society, for inquisitions, for demonization of dissenters.
The media plays a role. In recent days, much has been said and written about the Rev. Ted Haggard. I feel very sorry for Haggard and his family. He is a human being. He is alleged to have done things that he should not have. He disappointed people.
I do not know the man. But the decent thing, the tolerant thing, the forgiving thing is now to leave him and his family alone. Everyone in the media and everyone in public and private life is not required to render judgment against him.
How can any of us ever know what he did or why he did it? Most of all, how can any of us know the most intimate details of his personal life? I have a sense that he is a very decent man. I also have a sense that he is a much more complicated man than he seemed to many. Let us all now leave him alone. Let us not use him, his church or his faith for political purposes. Those who wish to use him to prove some political point about hypocrisy should desist.
Ted Haggard has not wronged me, so it is not for me to forgive him. But I do. I forgive him. Not knowing him, I cannot understand him. But I might like to someday. And I do not judge him. We are empowered to render man’s judgment for the violation of society’s civil and criminal laws. But we are not empowered to judge any man or woman’s soul. His religion and mine was founded on the proposition that we should judge not, that we be not judged.
Those more judgmental than I will say that to plead for understanding is to tolerate his behavior. But Jesus forgave the woman taken in adultery and commanded others not to judge her. Among Haggard’s followers I suspect there are those who have been very judgmental toward gays. I urge them to forgive Haggard and to use this experience to become more tolerant of those who belong to another political party, have different social views, or who disagree with President Bush.
The Enlightenment, upon whose principles our republic was founded, opened the human mind to science, to experimentation, to toleration, to secular government, to dissent, and to diversity of opinion. It is the basis of modern liberal democracy. Contrary to the harsher, judgmental voices of the right, liberalism is the basis for open-mindedness and tolerance. And those qualities are the basis for understanding, and for forgiveness.
I hope and pray that Haggard will be permitted to heal the fierce wounds he and his family are now suffering. And I hope someday he will be permitted to rejoin the ministry at which he was so effective. I suspect he will be even better at helping others to heal because of his travails.
I also hope the day will come when American society becomes more mature, when stories such as that of Haggard will occupy back pages of newspapers and will soon be forgotten, when those who may possess some talent useful to our nation are not so pilloried they can no longer be of service.
Ancient societies often employed a scapegoat to purge themselves of their wrongdoings. Many times the scapegoat was singled out simply because it looked different from the others. All the society’s sins and iniquities were heaped upon the scapegoat and the creature was set outside the city’s walls to be dealt with by the waiting wolves. Even our sophisticated society perpetuates the practice, though the wolves are often inside our gates.
Perhaps a step in the direction of recapturing our civility and our humanity is to regain a sense of understanding, tolerance and forgiveness.
Former U.S. Sen. Gary Hart lives in Kittredge.
