Big, Bigger and Biggest

What in the heck happened to “small,” “medium” and “large?”

The last few times I went to Burger King my three beverage cup options were, in order, medium, large and king-size. Now, I know it’s probably a waste of my time to go all Noah Webster on a large (or is that king-size?) impersonal fast-food company, but isn’t medium by definition the one in the middle?

And every time I go into one of those fancy coffee shops I have to have the sizes explained to me. It usually falls on the shoulders of some poor barista (now there’s a new word I love) to once again point out the ‘grande’ cup while the un-caffeinated masses form a grumbling line behind me.

I think that the refusal to use the standard “small, medium and large” designations that we have come to know and love is an attempt to drain the pockets of the consumer, or at least confuse him as to what is big and what is little in life.

For example, former presidential candidate John Kerry botched a joke last week when he implied that if young people don’t study hard and stay in school they might end up stuck in Iraq. What he meant to say is that if you don’t study hard and stay in school you might end up the type of person who gets his country stuck in Iraq.

Conservative radio talk-show hosts, various Republicans, and even President Bush himself, pounced on Kerry’s botched joke in an attempt to spin it from a molehill into a mountain. They accused him of insulting American troops in Iraq and implied that this was one more example of how Democrats are not fit for office in a time of war.

Evidently the public was not impressed by the Republican spin on this one. They realize that John Kerry is a standup guy—if not exactly a standup comedian—who served his country in Vietnam while many of his Republican detractors were hiding behind college deferments and National Guard assignments back home.

As of Wednesday morning, this year’s midterm elections show that the Democrats picked up more than 30 seats to control the House and have a better than even chance of claiming the two undecided races that would give them control of the Senate. It’s almost as if the public is saying that what is most important to them is re-establishing the balance of power that has been missing during most of the Bush Administration.

If Kerry’s blunder could be put into a “small” coffee cup, I imagine you would need something larger than 7-11’s massive Big Gulp cup to contain Reverend Ted Haggard’s recent revelations. Shortly before the election, Haggard resigned from his posts as pastor of New Life Church in Colorado Springs (14,000 members) and as president of the National Association of Evangelicals (30 million members) because of accusations that he had paid a gay man named Mike Jones for monthly sex for the past three years. Jones also accused Haggard of buying hundreds of dollars worth of the drug crystal meth to heighten the experience of the hotel get-togethers.

Evidently Jones decided to “out” Haggard because the pastor was an outspoken supporter of Colorado’s Amendment 43, which would define marriage as only between a man and a woman. For their part, both New Life Church and the National Association of Evangelicals have accepted Haggard’s resignations, although publicly they have stated that they feel the accusations against him are false.

I have to confess that there is a part of me that gets a real kick out of it every time one of these high-falutin’ Evangelical Christian mouthpieces falls from grace. It’s such a lovely reminder of many of my favorite biblical passages. There’s Jesus’ sermon in the mount, described in Matthew 7:1-2, which includes: “Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with that judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.”

Matthew 7:1-2 touches on two of the Bible’s recurring themes: The Golden Rule and God’s wish for us to “get our house in order.” As for the Golden Rule, it basically says that it’s a good idea to treat others as we ourselves would like to be treated. Directly linked to the Eastern concept of karma, it’s the basic principle that separates civilized man from the majority of animals (the mean animals, anyway). And, as far as I can tell, the Golden Rule doesn’t have exemptions for how to treat homosexuals, illegal immigrants or people who practice Islam.

The Bible has several references to getting one’s house in order. While quite literally it sounds like God really disapproves of stacks of dirty dishes in the sink and dust bunnies under the couch, I think it really refers to getting one’s priorities in order and not continually putting off spiritual goodness until tomorrow.

In this regard, I’d have to say that Rev. Ted Haggard is going to have a long haul before he puts his house in order. So far, of course, he has been going about it all wrong. He basically said his primary sin is having sex with another man when he stated last weekend, “There’s a part of my life that is so repulsive and dark that I have been warring against it for all of my adult life.”

No, Ted. Your big sin is not that you are gay or bisexual. If being gay is a sin (and I don’t think it is), it’s not even in your top five. Your big sins include cheating on your wife, lying to your wife and kids, buying and using illegal drugs, paying for sex via a prostitute, and hypocrisy. You might want to work on those big issues before worrying the medium and little ones.