W. David Hager gets probed

May 12, 2005 By

As a prolifer and a Bush appointee to an FDA advisory committee, W. David Hager has seen his share of fierce opposition. It’s likely to grow fiercer still amid disturbing allegations made by his former wife.

Conservative Christians and other prolifers are bound to experience a high rectal squirm factor today as Ayelish McGarvey’s cover story for the May 30 issue of The Nation begins to circulate. Hager stands accused of, among other things, forced sodomy and paying his wife for sex.

Linda Carruth Davis, Hager’s ex-wife and his coauthor on Stress and the Woman’s Body, tells McGarvey she decided to go public with these allegations after hearing Hager discuss their divorce during a chapel service at Asbury College. McGarvey researched the story diligently, finding several people who recall Davis as making such allegations while she was still married to Hager. (Davis says her allegations apply to the final seven years of their 32-year marriage.) McGarvey writes that Hager spoke with her for nearly 30 minutes, all off the record, other than adding, “My official comment is that I decline to comment.”

McGarvey, who has written about evangelicals and politics before in her job with The American Prospect, does not indulge in glib dismissals based on Hager’s Christian faith:

David Hager is not the fringe character and fundamentalist faith healer that some of his critics have made him out to be. In fact, he is a well-credentialed doctor. In Kentucky Hager has long been recognized as a leading Ob-Gyn at Lexington’s Central Baptist Hospital and a faculty member at the University of Kentucky’s medical school. And in the 1990s several magazines, including Modern Healthcare and Good Housekeeping, counted him among the best doctors for women in the nation.

At one point McGarvey interrupts her brisk narrative with an awkward assurance that this is not Zippergate all over again:

(Lest inappropriate analogies be drawn between the Hager accusations and the politics of personal destruction that nearly brought down the presidency of Bill Clinton, it ought to be remembered that President Clinton’s sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky was never alleged to be criminal and did not affect his ability to fulfill his obligations to the nation. This, of course, did not stop the religious right from calling for his head. “The topic of private vs. public behavior has emerged as perhaps the central moral issue raised by Bill Clinton’s ‘improper relationship,’” wrote evangelist and Hager ally Franklin Graham at the time. “But the God of the Bible says that what one does in private does matter. There needs to be no clash between personal conduct and public appearance.”)

So far no other magazine or newspaper has taken up the sexual allegations against Hager. Today’s Washington Post takes up only those aspects of McGarvey’s report that concern a memo by Hager that may have swayed an FDA ruling against Plan B, a birth-control pill that Hagee opposed for its possible effects on girls younger than 16.

McGarvey’s report brings troubling ethical allegations to light, and conservative pundits would do well not to leave all the follow-up to Atrios and other bloggers.

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Filed Under: Evangelicals, Journalism
  • rfwarren

    “The topic of private vs. public behavior has emerged as perhaps the central moral issue raised by Bill Clinton’s ‘improper relationship,’” wrote evangelist and Hager ally Franklin Graham at the time. “But the God of the Bible says that what one does in private does matter. There needs to be no clash between personal conduct and public appearance.”)

    Someone out there help me. Where in the Bible is this issue specifically addressed? I’m not a biblical scholar so excuse my ignorance on the subject. I’m sure some of you can quote it to me chapter and verse. Btw, no one needs to take on a pious attitude in answering. Thanks.

  • ECJ

    From Matthew, Chapter 23 – The Seven Woes of the Pharisees.

    The Pharisees had a very public leadership role in first century Israel, and Jesus here holds them accountable for their failure. As a side note, the word “Woe” indicates that Jesus is speaking in a prophetic voice, and is pronoucing irreversable judgment. It does not convey the weak “Woe is me” idea we have in modern language. “Woe” is a very strong word in this context.

    23″Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cummin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. 24You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.

    25″Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. 26Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean.

    27″Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men’s bones and everything unclean. 28In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.

    ECJ

  • Tom R

    “… gets probed…” Someone should be watching more televangelism and less South Park!…

  • francis

    Yes, it does matter – but when, to whom, in what context.

    Also, one should add that the calling for his head was, at least formally, because of alleged obstruction of justice. And for my part, I thought the legal hurly-burly about the Lewinsky affair to be nonsensical. (But I’m only an Old-European.) That’s just the legal matters, not the moral ones, though.

  • Anonymous

    What a sad, horrifying story!! This man is “supposed” to be a representative of Christ, and yet acts like an agent of the Devil. He’s a typical Pharisee, prayerful in public, predatory in private. The words of Jesus’ sermon quoted above apply to him and all others like him — in spades!! He sounds a bit like my husband, who in the past has forced me to have anal sex, which I found very painful, and vaginal sex even though I’ve been sleeping, nursing a baby, or ill. Likewise, my husband keeps tight hold on the family purse strings, and I have to ask him for just about every penny I spend. Because of his stinginess, we live in a house which is sweltering in the summer and freezing in winter. So many things in this article resonated with me. My husband doesn’t have the social standing of Hager, but he does receive Holy Communion each week at Mass, and many who know him think well of him — mainly his workplace colleagues. Like Hager, he often denies the sexual/verbal abuse and says that everything is “in my head.” He even brought home a case of crabs, and said he “couldn’t remember” how he contracted it. (Yeah, right!) I’m the one who went ASAP for blood tests and an examination. I demanded that he do the same, but so far (a year later), he hasn’t done so. That’s because he’s not the “problem” in our marriage, I am (sarcasm meter now off). Next month it will be 27 years since we married. Like Linda Davis, I suffer from depression, and have been in therapy several times. My husband refuses to go, claiming it’s all BS. Also like Ms. Davis, I am stuck here for the moment because of financial issues (putting two kids through college), and mostly because I just don’t have the energy to fight this man any more. I realize this isn’t a Christian sentiment, but I hope Hager — and others like him — somehow get thrown to the lions… Oh, wait — lions wouldn’t eat tainted meat… You may ask, how do I cope? I’m very active in community life, and feed my spirit through prayer and meditation. I’ve come to realize that “this too shall pass”, and for the moment I’ve discerned that staying in the marriage is God’s will right now. Humanly speaking, though, I hope the Lord changes His mind before too long…

  • http://molly.douthett.net Molly

    Thanks for your post, anonymous. I appreciate your courage.

  • http://molly.douthett.net Molly

    Conservative pundits have a long row to hoe to catch up, methinks.

    Here’s digby’s take:
    http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2005_05_08_digbysblog_archive.html#111591883425895699

    Get started, guys!

  • http://molly.douthett.net Molly

    Here are some other bloggers that one could lump in with Atrios:

    http://www.culturekitchen.com/archives/003024.html#comments
    http://patriotboy.blogspot.com/2005_05_08_patriotboy_archive.html#111595949276362400
    http://cascadiascorecard.typepad.com/blog/2005/05/plan_b_rape_and.html

    Those are a few that are out there now. Aside from some gutter language, I think they have some pretty good points especially the third that speaks to the disconnect between Hager’s non support of R 486 and the alleged raping of his wife.

    What do you want conservative bloggers to say about this situation? That she is lying? I am suspicious that there is a circle the wagons mentality at play in the last sentence of the post. If what Ms. Davis said is true, why protect him? If what she said is untrue, why defend him?

  • alison

    Anonymous, I was in your place. My husband was the music director at church, so there was no one I could go to for help. I thought about suicide every day, because I knew that was the only way I could ever leave the marriage. Fortunately, after 10+ years of this, my husband left me. But 20 years later, I am still living with the stigma, the STD, the broken heart and the broken dreams. I often wonder why we are on such a rampage over gay marriages when marriage in the church is so broken.

  • Ex-wife of a “good Christian man”

    As I read this, I felt huge anger at the church for it’s willingness to overlook this kind of thing, and huge sadness as I remembered my own marriage that ended in divorce. In the end the sadness won out, as I remembered how I, too, lost so many of my friends who refused to believe that my husband had become dangerous and abusive and, well, plain evil. What an incredibly brave woman Hager’s ex-wife is. I wish I could tell her that to her face. She will now see even more hatred exhibited toward her from the “Christian” community, but she is no longer protecting Hager’s image. Blessings to her, and to all the men and women who are kicked down by church people who judge instantly and never think to ask questions.

  • MT

    The following quote from the article shook me up. I’m male and I realize my wife is in this potential predicament. I wouldn’t want the show on the other foot…

    But to model gender relations on the one Jesus had with his followers is to leave women dangerously exposed in the event that the men in their lives don’t meet the high standard set by God Himself–trapped in a permanent state of dependence hoping to be treated well.

  • http://www.getreligion.org/?p=2 Douglas LeBlanc

    Molly, I intended no call to circle the wagons, as I thought would have been clear in the first clause of my final sentence. I would not write that these are serious ethical allegations if I thought conservatives should respond by calling Linda Carruth Davis a liar.

    Actually, as I wrote my final sentence I was recalling what a fine job William F. Buckley’s magazine, National Review, did in breaking the story about sexual scandal at Hillsdale College. It’s too late for any conservative to break this story, but follow-up reporting often reveals other important details.

    I’m not interested in joining liberal bloggers who have assumed David Hager’s guilt and begun gloating. But I’m equally uninterested in assuming that Linda Davis is a liar.