Windy City Media Group Frontpage News

THE VOICE OF CHICAGO'S GAY, LESBIAN, BI, TRANS AND QUEER COMMUNITY SINCE 1985

home search facebook twitter join
Gay News Sponsor Windy City Times 2023-12-13
DOWNLOAD ISSUE
Donate

Sponsor
Sponsor
Sponsor

  WINDY CITY TIMES

Hypocrisy Humbles Haggard
by Bob Roehr
2006-11-08

This article shared 5621 times since Wed Nov 8, 2006
facebook twitter pin it google +1 reddit email


He wants you: Clips from interviews with fallen Pastor Ted Haggard were all over YouTube.com last week.

___________

Pastor Ted Haggard—the president of the National Association of Evangelicals, the founder of a Colorado Springs mega-church and confidant of the Bush White House—has fallen from grace in a gay sex scandal.

Early in November in a series of interviews with the Denver media, Michael Forest Jones alleged that Haggard had hired him for sexual services on a regular basis for more than three years. He said that Haggard also used methamphetamine during many of their later encounters.

Jones, 49, is a powerfully built bodybuilder who has advertised his massage services 'with the pleasure of the man in mind' in the local gay newspaper and online. He said Haggard first contacted him for sex in 2003, identifying himself as 'Art,' a businessman from Kansas who frequently traveled to Denver.

Only earlier this year, when he saw 'Art' interviewed on television, did Jones come to realize that his client was Haggard. The preacher has taken a prominent role in pushing Colorado's constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage and he can be seen in the current documentary Jesus Camp.

Jones saved phone messages that 'Art' left on his answering machine in August as well as envelopes that 'Art' had mailed containing cash. Forensics experts have said the voice on that machine likely is Haggard.

Jones began to approach the media about two months ago. The story went public when he was interviewed on talk radio Nov. 1.

'Art' is no two-bit preacher. Pastor Ted Haggard, 50, is a married father of five. He founded the New Life Church in his basement in 1985 and grew it to 14,000 members, the largest church in Colorado. He became head of the 30-million-member evangelical association about the same time he started using Jones' services.

THE FALL

When the story broke, Haggard tried to cop a plea and cut his losses. The next day he resigned his position as president of the association and took a leave of absence from the church. He said he once bought meth and was tempted to use it, but quickly threw it away.

He also acknowledged hiring Jones, but only for massage services. 'I did not have a homosexual relationship with a man in Denver,' he said. He claimed they never had sex.

Perhaps, as Bill Clinton considered what Monica did to him not to be sex, Haggard did not consider what he did with Jones to be sex; but Jones did. Jones said they had sex, but at least on his side, there was no emotional involvement.

The New Life Church convened the independent Overseer Board, composed of outside clergymen, to review the situation. It needed little time to permanently remove Haggard from the church. The Board said in a statement, 'Our investigation and Pastor Haggard's public statements have proven without a doubt that he has committed sexually immoral conduct.'

In a letter read to the New Life Church congregation on Nov. 5, Haggard confessed, 'The fact is, I am guilty of sexual immorality. And I take responsibility for the entire problem. I am a deceiver and a liar. That's part of my life that is so repulsive and dark that I have been warring against it for all of my adult life.'

'The accusations made against me are not all true, but enough of them are that I was appropriately removed from my church leadership position.' Haggard apologized to them for having 'caused shame and embarrassment for all of you,' and confessed to having lied to reporters about the incidents.

'I didn't want to ruin his life or his family's life,' Jones said. 'I had to take a look at myself and how this affected my community, and I believe I did the right thing. You just can't have it both ways when you have so much influence ... . He should have been a better role model.'

THE MORAL

'What's interesting to me is that having adulterous gay sex is apparently, in Haggard's mind, a worse sin than buying crystal meth. He copped to the meth before the sex,' wrote gay pundit Andrew Sullivan on his blog. 'The drugs-worse-than-sex may be a story that works in the mainstream; but, among some Christians, drug abuse is nowhere near as bad as being gay.'

Wayne Besen has written extensively on the ex-gay movement. He says, 'Haggard is correct that there is a dark and repulsive part of his life, but it is not his homosexuality; it is his closet and the lies he used to maintain it. He built his empire on the backs of gay people and now he faces an awful comeuppance for his anti-gay sins.'

'Even after the downfall of James McGreevey, Mark Foley and now Ted Haggard, the right wing continues to promote the lie that homosexuality is just a temptation that can be changed. But if Haggard couldn't pray away the gay, who can? It is time Evangelical Christians exchange their anti-gay rhetoric for reality,' says Besen.

Amy Sullivan, one of four bloggers on Beliefnet, feels 'the story will reverberate further and longer than any of the scandals of the 1980s ( Swaggart, Bakker, etc. ) because it involves not just personal behavior, but an issue that conservative evangelicals have made extremely clear is one of their two top priorities.'

'And I wonder how or if this will affect the condemnation of homosexuality in general within conservative evangelical circles. After all, we know that people's attitudes change once they learn that someone they know is gay. A lot of evangelicals know ( or at least know of ) Haggard. If he indeed has been involved with a gay man, that could blow a lot of evangelical minds.'

Social conservatives initially tried to spin the allegations against Haggard as a politically motivated move just before the elections. Maybe the timing was, says Besen, 'but having played the sexual-orientation card as an election year ploy for decades, they are in no position to complain about this November ballot box boomerang.'

Will the Haggard scandal have any impact on the elections? Ted Trimpa is of two minds and nervous. He has difficulty believing it will translate into a vote against the amendment to ban gay marriage that is on the ballot in Colorado. 'Whether or not evangelical voters will be less likely to vote is yet to be seen.'

What worries the political consultant to the pro-gay Gill Action Fund, based in Denver, is that both the Foley and now the Haggard scandals 'have shifted the public conversation from equality and basic legal rights to gay sex ... . Whenever 'gay sex' is the story, or at least part of it, no amount of 'hypocrisy' can drown it out.'

Trimpa says Colorado Referendum I, which would establish civil unions, had been leading and building support. But those scandals 'have unaffiliated women wondering whether their husbands are pulling a Haggard on them.' That has 'jeopardized our lead and now we're in a dead heat at best' on the referendum. Turnout will be key to the outcome in this and other votes across the country.


This article shared 5621 times since Wed Nov 8, 2006
facebook twitter pin it google +1 reddit email

Out and Aging
Presented By

  ARTICLES YOU MIGHT LIKE

Gay News

Thailand parliament passes landmark marriage bill 2024-03-27
- On March 27, Thailand's parliament approved a marriage-equality bill by an overwhelmingly large margin—a landmark step that moves one of Asia's most liberal countries closer to legalizing same-sex unions, media ...


Gay News

Kara Swisher talks truth, power in tech at Chicago Humanities event 2024-03-25
- Lesbian author, award-winning journalist and podcast host Kara Swisher spoke about truth and power in the tech industry through the lens of her most recent book, Burn Book: A Tech Love Story, March 21 at First ...


Gay News

Wyoming is latest state to ban gender-affirming care for minors 2024-03-24
- On March 22, Wyoming became the latest state to prohibit gender-affirming care for minors, The Hill noted. In doing so, it joined 23 other states that passed laws restricting or banning the treatment. Legislators in both ...


Gay News

Chicago alder proposes renaming street after Obama 2024-03-22
- Openly gay Black Chicago Ald. Lamont Robinson has proposed renaming Columbus Drive after former U.S. President and city resident Barack Obama, media outlets noted. The street stretches through the Loop from East Grand Avenue to DuSable ...


Gay News

Congressional Equality Caucus on FY24 bills passing the house 2024-03-22
--From a press release - WASHINGTON, DC — Today, Chair of the Congressional Equality Caucus, Rep. Mark Pocan (WI-02), released the following statement after the House successfully passed the final funding bills for Fiscal Year ...


Gay News

WORLD Uganda items, HIV report, Mandela, Liechtenstein, foreign minister weds 2024-03-21
- It turned out that U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Senior LGBTQI+ Coordinator Jay Gilliam traveled to Uganda on Feb. 19-27, per The Washington Blade. He visited the capital of Kampala and the nearby city of ...


Gay News

NATIONAL Va. marriage bill, AARP, online counseling, Idaho items, late activist 2024-03-21
- Republican Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin signed bills protecting same-sex marriages at a state level, surprising some, WRIC reported. The bills—passed out of both chambers along mostly party lines—will require clerks ...


Gay News

LGBTQ+ candidates Marcelino Garcia, Precious Brady Davis win primary elections to keep MWRD seats 2024-03-21
- Marcelino Garcia and Precious Brady-Davis, the two openly LGBTQ+ incumbents in the race to keep their seats on the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District (MWRD), won their primary elections and will move on to the general this ...


Gay News

Small LGBTQ+ candidate pool nevertheless scores some important victories March 19 2024-03-20
- Relatively few openly LGBTQ+ candidates were running in the March 19 Illinois Primary Election. But there were some significant contests in play at the local, state and federal levels. Openly gay Ald. Ray Lopez (15th Ward) ...


Gay News

Gay Irish prime minister to step down 2024-03-20
- In a surprise move, openly gay Irish Prime Minister (or Taoiseach) Leo Varadkar has announced his resignation, citing "personal and political, but mainly political reasons," according to CNN. Varadkar said he felt he was no longer ...


Gay News

Chicago's LGBTQ+ Advisory Council sets a new course 2024-03-18
- Chicago's LGBTQ+ Advisory Council held its first meeting of the calendar year on Feb. 28 at City Hall in the Loop under the leadership of the recently appointed chair Jin-Soo Huh. The LGBTQ+ Advisory Council is ...


Gay News

NATIONAL Missouri measure, HIV/AIDS Awareness Day, judge, Texas schools 2024-03-15
- In Missouri, a newly proposed law could charge teachers and counselors with a felony and require them to register as sex offenders if they're found guilty of supporting transgender students who are socially transitioning, CNN noted. ...


Gay News

PASSAGES: Former Chicago Commission on Human Relations chair Clarence Wood 2024-03-13
- LGBTQ ally and former Chicago Commission on Human Relations (CCHR) Chair and Commissioner Clarence N. Wood died March 5. He was 83. Wood was born April 14, 1940, in Alabama. While primarily raised in Alabama, Wood ...


Gay News

Longtime LGBTQ+-rights activist David Mixner dies at 77 2024-03-12
- On March 11, longtime LGBTQ+ and HIV/AIDS activist David Mixner—known for working on Bill Clinton's presidential campaign but then splitting from him over "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" (DADT)—died at age 77, The Advocate reported. ...


Gay News

LGBTQ+ Victory Fund remembers co-founder David Mixner 2024-03-12
--From a press release - Today, LGBTQ+ Victory Fund President & CEO Mayor Annise Parker released the following statement on the passing of LGBTQ+ civil rights activist and LGBTQ+ Victory Fund co-founder David Mixner: "Today, we lost David Mixner, a founding ...


 


Copyright © 2024 Windy City Media Group. All rights reserved.
Reprint by permission only. PDFs for back issues are downloadable from
our online archives.

Return postage must accompany all manuscripts, drawings, and
photographs submitted if they are to be returned, and no
responsibility may be assumed for unsolicited materials.

All rights to letters, art and photos sent to Nightspots
(Chicago GLBT Nightlife News) and Windy City Times (a Chicago
Gay and Lesbian News and Feature Publication) will be treated
as unconditionally assigned for publication purposes and as such,
subject to editing and comment. The opinions expressed by the
columnists, cartoonists, letter writers, and commentators are
their own and do not necessarily reflect the position of Nightspots
(Chicago GLBT Nightlife News) and Windy City Times (a Chicago Gay,
Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender News and Feature Publication).

The appearance of a name, image or photo of a person or group in
Nightspots (Chicago GLBT Nightlife News) and Windy City Times
(a Chicago Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender News and Feature
Publication) does not indicate the sexual orientation of such
individuals or groups. While we encourage readers to support the
advertisers who make this newspaper possible, Nightspots (Chicago
GLBT Nightlife News) and Windy City Times (a Chicago Gay, Lesbian
News and Feature Publication) cannot accept responsibility for
any advertising claims or promotions.

 
 

TRENDINGBREAKINGPHOTOS







Sponsor


 



Donate


About WCMG      Contact Us      Online Front  Page      Windy City  Times      Nightspots
Identity      BLACKlines      En La Vida      Archives      Advanced Search     
Windy City Queercast      Queercast Archives     
Press  Releases      Join WCMG  Email List      Email Blast      Blogs     
Upcoming Events      Todays Events      Ongoing Events      Bar Guide      Community Groups      In Memoriam     
Privacy Policy     

Windy City Media Group publishes Windy City Times,
The Bi-Weekly Voice of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Trans Community.
5315 N. Clark St. #192, Chicago, IL 60640-2113 • PH (773) 871-7610 • FAX (773) 871-7609.