Exodus President Alan Chambers, Exodus Executive Vice President Randy Thomas, and disgraced evangelical Ted Haggard all claim two things in common: An egocentric evangelical faith, and the notion that molestation at an early age caused them to “battle with homosexuality.”

In an article written for the religious-rightist publication WorldNetDaily, Chambers declared today that “there are some important lessons that the church can learn from Ted Haggard.” Chambers applies his own egocentrism to a disingenuous commingling of sexual orientation with sexual trauma, resulting in an article that intentionally misinforms readers about gay people’s lives, values, and religious beliefs. Readers are expected to illogically believe that, because Chambers is an amoral victim of sexual trauma, all gay people are just like (or anything like) Alan Chambers.

Chambers surmises, “For every gay activist that shouts in the parades, I’m willing to bet that there’s someone in our congregations who painfully struggles with homosexuality, but is afraid to reach out for help. I know because I was that person.”

With this statement, Chambers stereotypes participants in gay pride events, insinuating that anyone who attends a gay pride event — parents, children, choirs, country square-dancers, rollerbladers, music-lovers, and foodies — is a stereotypical, lockstep “gay activist.” He also stereotypes people who are born with a strong predisposition to same-gender sexual orientation, falsely insinuating that — because he, Thomas, and Haggard say so — real gay people share Chambers’ own lonely, lust-plagued “gay life” that is incompatible with religious faith.

Chambers praises freedom-from-sexuality as a virtue:

While there is freedom through the power of Christ….

and then Chambers complains:

… the sad truth remains that there is still something terribly wrong in many of our congregations, something that all of the marriage protection laws and constitutional amendments cannot fix. Many of our churches are not safe places for us to be vulnerable and seek help and so many continue to suffer in silence.

Exodus is not a solution to the antigay violence and unchecked fear that plague churches: It is a cause.

All too often and all too loudly, Exodus defends murder, rape, and battery as religious “free speech” rights. Randy Thomas routinely opposes all efforts to punish hate crimes in which the victim is targeted for one’s perceived sexual orientation or gender identity, going so far as to accuse antiviolence advocates of being thought police. Meanwhile, he and Chambers offer no concrete objections to existing hate-crime laws that punish violence which targets people for their religion or ethnicity. Exodus joins with religious-rightist allies in promoting paranoia and self-pity over non-existent threats to Christian free speech, while each year hundreds of people are brutally and deliberately murdered — and thousands more are beaten and injured — because of their orientation or gender variance.

Exodus promotes the myth that gay people are promiscuous, unhappy, lonely, faithless and amoral. Instead of discussing sexuality, orientation, and mental health honestly, Exodus leaders project their own unhappiness, loneliness, childhood traumas, self-denial, and past or present sexual compulsions onto the gay population. The natural result is a marginalization of gay people within their churches, as Exodus misinforms churchgoers about gay congregants’ “struggles.” Another result is family breakup, as misinformed relatives stigmatize their gay family members.

Given Exodus’ role in making churches unsafe, it’s sad but unsurprising that Chambers’ article offers no concrete solutions to readers — except to place their blind trust not only in Exodus and its psychobabble, but also in convicted (and largely impenitent) Watergate criminal Chuck Colson, who has made a second career out of scapegoating society’s bogeymen for his own sins while curtailing religious freedom and respect toward Jewish and other non-evangelical prisoners.

Like Exodus International executive vice president Randy Thomas, fallen evangelist Ted Haggard refuses to discuss his sexual orientation in a straightforward fashion.

Neither will say whether they are primarily attracted — either sexually or romantically — to the same sex. The question is not a very complicated one for people who are really homosexual — unless one’s livelihood depends upon giving answers that are contrary to reality.

Both Thomas and Haggard avoid using the “ex-gay” label to describe themselves, but they consistently preach ex-gay ideology: Both are persons with unresolved emotional disabilities who claim dubious expertise about homosexuality based on extreme personal circumstances — and who then project their own unflattering extremes of compulsion and behavior onto normal, well-adjusted, healthy persons who are predominantly or exclusively same-sex-attracted.

Both Thomas and Haggard say that they were sexually abused as children, and that this abuse confused their attractions. Both eventually resorted to self-abusive behavior — sexual compulsion and drug abuse. So when either Thomas or Haggard touts their “former homosexuality,” even briefly, their appeals for attention are perceived by many gay people to be desperate efforts to claim expertise about a subject — homosexuality — in which their experiences are atypical and self-deluded. During the 1980s, in fact, Thomas rejected the advice of his gay peers in Tennessee and instead engaged in reckless sex and drug abuse, before he eventually turned against his friends and declared his own unhealthy lifestyle — and his warped relationship with parents and relatives — to be synonymous with the homosexuality of his peers. Haggard has behaved similarly.

Two years after his extramarital sexual activities with a male prostitute were exposed, Haggard is again seeking media exposure. He says he has changed; and he says anyone can change what he calls a “learned behavior.”

In interviews with the Associated Press (Jan. 9) and with Newsweek (Jan. 19), Haggard promoted “The Trials of Ted Haggard,” an HBO documentary on Haggard’s exile from the conservative evangelical community. The documentary, which will premiere on Jan. 29, reportedly focuses upon Haggard’s resentment toward New Life and its ex-gay orthodoxy. With AP’s help, Focus on the Family has issued a pre-emptive strike against Haggard’s complaints. (Read More)

In a new documentary set to air on HBO next month, a disgraced evangelical pastor comes clean. “The Trials of Ted Haggard,” directed by US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s daughter Alexandra, was filmed with Haggard’s cooperation — and how.

You may recall that two years ago, Haggard stepped down from his post as president of the National Association of Evangelicals and was sacked as senior pastor of New Life Church in Colorado Springs after a former male prostitute alleged that the cleric paid him for sex and used illicit substances.

I have yet to see the documentary, but published reports say that Haggard speaks onscreen, speaks about his new life. The father of five remains in his marriage for the same of his children and apparently has been living with shame. While he doesn’t speak of his sexual improprieties in detail, he does admit to “sexual immorality” and says, “I really did sin.” Haggard tells of his longtime struggle with his same-sex desires, insisting that he never claimed to be heterosexual.

“The reason I kept my personal struggle a secret is because I feared that my friends would reject me, abandon me and kick me out, and the church would exile and excommunicate me. And that happened and more,” he says in the film.

He also reveals that while he purchased methamphetamine, he never used it.

Haggard’s wife Gayle speaks in the documentary as well, and offers what perhaps is the reason behind the couple’s participation in the production: “I know to restore the honor to our children is to help restore honor to their father.”

That may be a long, hard road. Right-wing Christian leadership isn’t treating Haggard with honor, and most GLBT people probably will say that a man who worked so hard against honorable treatment for us is not worthy of anything resembling honor. Many believe he’s getting his just deserts.

After the scandal broke, the Haggard family fled Colorado for Arizona, where the former preacher confesses thta he is having a tough time making ends meet as an insurance salesperson. “At this stage in my life, I am a loser,” Haggard says.

I suspect Haggard is a loser only if he does not come to grips with his reality and learn to embrace it. If he can emerge from this crisis a better human being, then he will deserve to be honored. He doesn’t have to abandon his family to do it: Many gay and bisexual people end up in marriages with heterosexual partners. (Exhibit A: Me.) Sometimes those marriages work; often they do not. But the real losers are the misguided ones who work to diminish others. The Religious Wrong is filled hypocrites who divide people and spead a message that does not include anything Jesus would champion — things like forgiveness, compassion, and acceptance without judgment.

Haggard could choose to re-up as a fundamentalist Christian soldier — or he could take another road, one that leads to justice for all of God’s children and could help him right the wrongs he committed. That second path leads to honor. At this point in his now-difficult life, the choice is his.

You know what? I hope he makes the honorable choice — and I wish him and his family well.

“The Trials of Ted Haggard” is scheduled to run Jan. 29 on HBO.