Altar boys, maybe?
I’m sure it’s not what he meant, but it just makes me imagine one hell of an orgy there!
That reminds me of a joke I heard after Michael Jackson was acquitted this past year.
And so a new signature line is born.
What? I’m sorry, I must not have heard you properly. I believe you said that when a workaholic husband’s wife has an affair, it’s the wife’s fault.
I think you meant to say (and you are wrong in this): “when a workaholic husband has an affair, it’s his wife’s fault” because you go on to say that “the workaholic doesn’t have the right to act like his behavior has nothing to do with it.” Which is it? Who is the one breaking fidelity vows here-the workaholic or the wife?
Here’s a thought for you: if the husband (or either spouse) is a workaholic, there is a problem (most likely more than one) in the relationship. This is an issue to be worked on by both parties. If one partner decides to withhold sex or affection (or both), that is another issue (albeit related) to the first. NEITHER issue excuses infidelity. (this is a general statement, not referencing the Haggards, who must be looking pretty haggard about now…).
I don’t care if Gayle Haggard was a ball busting bitch at home or the evangelical equivalent of Betty Crocker. Neither extreme rationalizes or excuses her husband’s behavior.
Last I looked, people are in charge of their own non-criminal sexual choices. If a man decides to unzip his pants and use his penis sexually with someone other than his wife, he has made a choice. She didn’t make it for him. And vice versa, of course. Can there be a home environment that makes these choices more likely? Sure. But the choice is separate from the environment. It might be easier to go to a hooker or start an affair than face issues and problems and the need to change in counselling, but the avoidance of the root issues is also a choice. One does not excuse the other.
Yes, I did.
No, I did not.
I agree, and also with the rest of your post. You are misunderstanding me.
You state that there can be “home environments that makes these choices more likely” while still not excusing them. I agree, and I’m pretty sure the writer linked in the OP does so also.
The OP and Archive Guy, however, were failing to make the distinction that you did – that identifying bad environments that make such choices more likely is not the same as assigning blame.
The writer linked in the OP was pointing out one such bad environment: e.g. a wife who does not want to have sex. The whole point of the workaholic analogy was to give another one. Neither the workaholic husband nor the non-sexual wife is responsible for their partner’s infidelity, but neither are they uninvolved.
Damn, some of these “Christian” churches sound scary. Granted, I am a Methodist, seemingly the least scary of the denominations (unless you ask Mel Brooks).
Seriously, I have never once heard gay-bashing, women-bashing, sex-bashing or any other bashing from the pulpit at my church. Maybe we’re just different, but sweet Jesus, where do they grow these pod people who grab the headlines?
Makes me embarrassed to be a Christian sometimes. 
furt --did you mean to refer to the wife of the workaholic as the one having the affair in your first post? Because that is what it says. Since the topic of the thread is about a husband who did so, I was confused re your post regarding a woman doing so. Does she use the fact that he is never home as an excuse for her cheating? We don’t know what Haggard’s excuse was and the fact that a third party has jumped into the fray, implicating Haggard’s wife is fairly sexist and nasty, IMO.
I don’t agree with you for either of the above scenarios. I am saying that whatever the home environment-- it cannot be used as a rationale for cheating, by either spouse. I don’t think you said that. Gayle Haggard is NOT culpable in this–Tim or Ted or whatever his name is, is. The article is not saying what I’m saying. It is making his home life, as exemplified by his wife, to be an ameliorating factor–the old, “well, if she had made him happier at home” nonsense. I call BS on that.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t it still the doctrine of Methodism that the practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching? It was adopted in 1986, and affirmed again in 1996.
And at the 2004 General Conference, the following resolution passed: “To ensure that no annual conference board, agency, committee, commission, or council shall give United Methodist funds to any gay caucus or group, or otherwise use such funds to promote the acceptance of homosexuality. The council shall have the right to stop such expenditures.”
http://www.religioustolerance.org/hom_umc6.htm
I’ve a number of friends who left Methodism recently over their continuing stance on homosexuals.
So maybe they don’t preach it from the pulpit, but my friends felt they sure practiced discrimination.
Yes. I deliberately switched the genders to make the point that gnder had nothing to do with it.
Did you read what the OP linked to? NOBODY said anything specifically about his wife. In an advice column to young ministers about how to avoid falling into temptation, he said that they should make sure that they have a healthy sex life at home. Since marital rape is kind of a bad thing, the wife has to help make that happen.
NOBODY is saying it is.
NOBODY is saying that.
Do you or do you not agree with this statement: “Can there be a home environment that makes these choices more likely? Sure.”
That’s all I’ve ever said, and it’s all the writer linked in the OP said.
I wasn’t clear on your making the switch deliberate. Since I wrote “Can there be a home environment that makes these choices more likely? Sure.”, I do agree with it. My point is that even with circumstances that are unhappy etc, making the choice of infidelity is the chooser’s responsibility–and a nasty, hurtful, selfish one at that.
An unhappy, “doesn’t understand me, doesn’t put out when I want it” spouse is no excuse. IMO, the couple needs to work out their problems or end the marriage-hopefully they will try the former before doing the latter.
I disagree with you that no one is looking askance at Gayle Haggard.
This sounds like a rationale to me. Gee, if only Gayle would have-- what, exactly? joined him in his meth? Put on a strap-on and fake moustache? He couldn’t get gay sex at home. The implication, like archiveguy posted, is that out of all the possible reasons for Haggard’s behavior, his relationship with his wife is the one highlighted. It is not a huge jump or any jump at all to see this as a spreading of blame and responsibility. Why else drag her into it? His addictions have nothing to do with him. His behavior is more that of an addict than a man who may frequent a prostitute. The alcoholic drinks for whatever twisted reason, and then because he is addicted. Everyone else is a bystander. Same principle is at work here. Gayle no more pushed him to the gay/meth stuff than the gay/meth stuff drew him in.* This is all on Haggard.
Haggard has his own personal demons; IMO, his wife has done nothing to either ameliorate or exacerbate them. Sadly, it is his demons that have hurt her, their kids and their community.
*I think that the thought is out there re “unsatisfactory wives” “pushing” men to hookers or affairs. I think it’s a crock of shit. There is a difference between being unhappy in a relationship(eg not getting any at home) and choosing to cheat. Off soapbox now.
Crap. His addictions have nothing to do with HER. Oy.
QtM- all true, in regards to the UMC governing body (as with most of our denominations, sadly).
My congregation prefers to be a force for change from within, subversives that we are! 
Christ almighty.
Please try to read exactly what I say, and assume NOTHING.
I AGREE TEN THOUSAND PERCENT. NOBODY HERE DISAGREES.
The writer quoted in the OP does not believe in Divorce. No how, no way.
Neither I, nor the writer quoted in the OP, was speaking of her.
I have no reason to think, and do not think, that she is or ever was in any way deficient.
The writer quoted in the OP, has no reason to think, and so far as we know does not think, that she is or ever was in any way deficient.
It does not follow, that a writer who is discussing infidelity* in general terms,* which the writer quoted in the OP was doing, cannot mention a poor sex life as contributing factor, as part of “a home environment that makes these choices more likely”
The OP is simply not true. Nobody here or anywhere else (AFAIK) is blaming his wife.
Will it help you understand if I make it clear that I think Ted Haggard is a shitbag, entirely deserving of public disgrace, and utterly indefensible?
I tend not say obvious things like that, and sometimes people assume.
Mark Driscoll takes even as he gives…with remarks like this: “A wife who lets herself go and is not sexually available to her husband in the ways that the Song of Songs is so frank about is not responsible for her husband’s sin, but she may not be helping him either.”
My point, not to beat a dead horse, is that her “not helping” of him is irrelevant to his adultery. This applies to Haggard, as well as any spouse’s cheating. Sorry if we are talking at cross purposes, but you seem to be saying that if a woman --oh, never mind. I went back and reread one of your posts.
I’m with you as far as “uninvolved”, I stop at culpable for another’s choice. Sounds like you do too.
So what do you want to talk about now?
An unwarranted conclusion based on unspoken assumptions played a part in generating the kerfuffle in this thread. Of course, the fact that magellan01 is an idiot gasbag helped a lot.
Sigh. Why unwarranted conclusions based on unspoken assumptions play a part in generating kerfuffles.
Not.
But you said…
(Honduras is far from here, so I won’t duck and run…)
Then why the fuck did he dredge up a pile of horseshit about how “many pastors’ wives” are “lazy” because their husbands are “trapped in fidelity” and “let themselves go”? The statement is a steaming pile of misogynist dung. How the hell is it even relevant to Haggard’s situation if he isn’t referring, however obliquely, to Haggard’s wife?
She provided him with cover for years. If she knew anything , she should have stopped him from being a lying preacher. But, the money was too good.