There was more than a little schadenfreude on this side of the fence because Haggard had spouted the usual fundamentalist line on homosexuality. A movie called “Jesus Camp” caught him saying, “We don’t have to debate about what we should think about homosexual activity. It’s written in the Bible.” But it seems he did think about it, telling the Rev. Lou Sheldon of the anti-gay Traditional Values Coalition that he’d come to believe homosexuality was genetic.


Sheldon was having none of it, declaring that Haggard was “covering up” because gays “need to say that.”


I thought of this again last week when a reader passed along a flier from the “Family and Culture Seminar” held at Lancaster Christian School, at which state Rep. Scott Boyd and Michael Geer of the Pennsylvania Family Institute touted the Pennsylvania Marriage Protection Amendment as “important to you and your family.”


“Important” because you never know when an activist judge is going to decide that even queers are entitled to equal treatment under the law. Boyd’s amendment would prohibit this, officially designating gays as second-class citizens unworthy of the right to marry. But as to how this “protects” marriage, I’m not sure.


It’s generally accepted that gays will somehow wreck marriage, beyond the damage straights have already inflicted upon it. But how, exactly? Near as I can tell, there are two arguments. The first is that letting gays marry cheapens the institution, making it less appealing. If that happens, fewer people might get married, more children might be born out of wedlock — where kids are born at all — and the stable family structure historically provided by marriage will disintegrate.


I understand the fear, but the argument rings hollow. If you’re married, do the years you’ve spent with your spouse mean nothing, or mean less, once gays are permitted access to the institution? Or perhaps your kids will decide that marriage isn’t worth the time or trouble. But what, frankly, prohibits them from deciding that right now?


The other argument goes back to Sheldon’s comments. For if you, like Sheldon, reject the notion that homosexuality could be inborn, you necessarily consider it a choice. A temptation — to which everyone, and anyone, may succumb.


And because the decadent gay lifestyle is somehow so seductive, the sex itself so lusty, normal heterosexuals can be drawn into this Sybaritic life of sin.


That might sound odd to those who aren’t tempted, regardless of how alluring it’s all supposed to be. But if you’ve struggled with these impulses, my guess is it makes a certain sort of desperate sense.


And I’ve begun to wonder how many Ted Haggards there are out there, people who can’t shake the impulse even though they’re repulsed by it, who refuse to consider that it might be genetic and tell themselves instead that it’s just sin — a terrible, terrifying sin that must be resisted.


When that’s the case, of course society mustn’t legitimize that which they are struggling to repress. Of course gay marriage is a threat to straight marriage, perhaps their own.


For societal acceptance of gay unions would allow a small sliver of light into the closet. It would be an affirmation that, you know what? You don’t have to live your life ashamed. And there might indeed be those who heave a sigh of relief and decide, finally, to be who they are.


That definitely could imperil your marriage. But only if you’ve already imperiled it by living a lie.


Gil Smart is associate editor of the Sunday News. E-mail him at gsmart@lnpnews.com, or phone 291-8817.

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