Ted Haggard, leader of the biggest Evangelical Church in America, and a regular chit-chatter with President Boosh (good background from Harpers magazine), apparently likes to get high on meth and down with male prostitutes:
The accusations were made by Mike Jones, 49, of Denver, who said he decided to go public because of the political fight over the amendments.
"I just want people to step back and take a look and say, 'Look, we're all sinners, we all have faults, but if two people want to get married, just let them, and let them have a happy life,"' said Jones, who added that he isn't working for any political group.
Jones, who said he is gay, said he was also upset when he discovered Haggard and the New Life Church had publicly opposed same-sex marriage.
"It made me angry that here's someone preaching about gay marriage and going behind the scenes having gay sex," he said.
Jones claimed Haggard paid him to have sex nearly every month over three years. He said he advertised himself as an escort on the Internet and was contacted by a man who called himself Art, who snorted methamphetamine before their sexual encounters to heighten his experience.
This is going to be a hard thing for a lot of people to deal with, and it's too bad this guy's life is probably ruined now, that his family's going to be all weirded out. Still, I find it hard not to appreciate the irony, especially considering I think what Haggard was doing with his life previously was destructive to society.
Someday, when we as human beings cease to be sheep and blind-believers in significant number, this sort of thing is going to stop being so surprising. Those who thunder hardest against what they consider sin and vice are usually battling some internal discrepancy in themselves.
