Being a high school teacher, I cannot tell you how often I encounter homophobia because frankly, I've lost count. Students who represent a population with a history of being victimized by racism and repression utter the most insensitive, rabid homophobic remarks you can imagine. Part of it is cultural, part of it is perhaps religious but it's always annoying. I got asked the other day by one of my students--religious, studious and yes, homophobic--if I felt sorry for Ted Haggard. I told her to look up the word Schadenfreude and to get back to me on Monday.

DENVER -- There will be prayer, and perhaps the laying on of hands. There will be counseling and a confession. And there will be advice, confrontation and rebuke from "godly men" appointed to oversee the spiritual "restoration" of the Rev. Ted Haggard.

After tumbling from the pinnacle of the American evangelical movement amid allegations he snorted meth and cavorted with a male prostitute, Haggard has agreed to a rehabilitation process that could last three to five years.

"I see success approximately 50 percent of the time," said H.B. London, vice president for church and clergy at Focus on the Family, the conservative Christian ministry in Colorado Springs. "Guys just wear out and they can no longer subject themselves to the process."

Those who fail "end up selling cars or shoes or something, and being miserable and angry the rest of their lives," London said.

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Now, I almost feel sorry for him. Almost...

Given the choice, I think he'd rather be on the meth.

This sort of thing is maybe #2 on my list of "100 Reasons Organized Religion Is Evil", right behind, "It has a tendency to cause wars and embolden warriors."