Focus on the Fundies: Ted Haggard promotes HBO doc

Ted Haggard appeared yesterday before the press to promote the HBO documentary about him, "The Trials of Ted Haggard." (An ironic title, by the way, since Haggard has never been charged with any crime despite admitting to buying and possessing methamphetamine.)

Among the entertaining statements and revelations made by the formerly influential Colorado Springs megachurch pastor:

• Haggard, who preached against homosexuality before being outed as gay, now thinks "sexuality is confusing and complex." Clearly, he learned that lesson the hard way.
• Haggard has softened his views on gay marriage, saying that government should fully recognize the union between any two people and that churches are wrongly fighting a "war" over the word "marriage."
• Speaking of his firing and the way he perceives he has been treated since the scandal, he says he "knows about hatred than I ever dreamed" -- a statement that epitomizes his self-pitying view. Other pitiful statements include the satisfying "At this stage in my life, I'm a loser—a first-class loser" and "It is a sad story... I made myself sad; I made everybody that loves me sad."
• The "spiritual solution" to his fall "was not enough;" he also needed "secular therapy methods."

In a separate story from the dozens covering Haggard's HBO press conference, the Colorado Springs Gazette said the current pastor of Haggard's former church has discharged him from the severance agreement, one of the terms of which was that Haggard would not discuss the scandal publicly. The generous severance package hasn't kept Haggard from saying that his firing from and subsequent treatment by New Life was the equivalent of being told "Go to hell," and complaints like that have some former supporters angry. "The fact that he's attacking the church or New Life Church, when they did so much to help him and his family, is below the belt," said H.B. London, one of the Focus on the Family pastors assigned to "rehabilitate Haggard after his firing.

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