Focus on the Fundies: Ted Haggard is preaching again

For some reason, disgraced, defrocked religious leaders always seem to be able to attract new or old followers by allowing the suckers to "forgive" them and thus feel virtuous. And in America, there has never been a shortage of either. Disgraced Colorado Springs megachurch leader Ted Haggard, whose outing as a meth-snorting, gay prostitute-paying hypocrite played a role in 2006's Republican election debacle, and in the disillusionment of right-wing Christians with the Republican party, is preaching again, appearing at a rural Illinois church.

Then the 50-year-old president of the National Association of Evangelicals and a symbol of the relationship between the Christian Right and the Republican Party, Haggard was outed by the male prostitute whom he had patronized and bought drugs from over several years in Colorado. His very public fall, coming just days before the 2006 election, was preceded a month earlier by the fall of Mark Foley, and marked the beginning of the end of Republican domination of electoral politics in the U.S. for several years.

Be sure to read to the end of today's story where an elder of Haggard's former church compares him to a "mouse" in his present state.

Update: Courtesy Jeff Sharlett, here's an ABC News story -- with audio excerpts from Haggard's sermon if you play the video.

technorati: Ted Haggard, Christians, televangelists

Haggard rent boy inks book deal

That didn't take long: Mike Jones, the male hooker who outed right-wing Xtian Ted Haggard, has a book deal. The publish date is June and the publisher is Seven Stories Press.

Meanwhile I ran across this blog entry (courtesy some other evangelical's blog). In it the writer compares what he felt as a child when his family was shunned after his father was uncovered as a pedophile, and he is all concerned about protecting Ted Haggard's kids from the same public shame. Seems to miss the point, which is that Haggard himself helped to create the environment in which he is now shamed and mocked, by publicly condemning homosexuals and presenting himself as superior. His hard fall is a function of how high he rode that hobbyhorse before falling off.

But as for Haggard's children, they may be learning something entirely different from their father's situation than what the very concerned writer thinks they are learning. As we saw earlier this week, not only are many of Haggard's former followers so eager to demonstrate their pious forgiveness of his betrayal that they gave what I suppose are thousands of dollars for the family's support, but the congregation itself is calculating a severance package for the man. So what are the kids learning from that? That the consequences of extraordinarily bad behavior -- of lying to your family, your church, and Karl Rove; of tossing your reputation into the toilet; of doing drugs with a male prostitute -- are really not so bad?

How she lost that story

Patricia Calhoun, editor of the Denver alt.weekly Westword, writes how her paper was approached by Mike Jones -- the male escort whose allegations led to the outing of Colorado Springs preacher Ted Haggard -- but was reluctant to run the story on the slim evidence Jones provided.

What ultimately happened is that another organization, a Colorado Springs television station that had already interviewed Jones and likewise sat on the story, heard Jones interviewed on a Denver radio station making allegations about an unnamed clergyman. Recognizing Jones from their contact with him, the station went straight to Haggard and interviewed him -- this was when he issed his first denials, claiming, for example, not to know any Mike Jones. (My favorite quote from that interview is still Haggard asking "What'd you say his name was?" I'll bet he can remember it now.)

If I were Calhoun I would have done the same thing -- sat on the story in the absence of incontrovertible evidence. The TV station showed cleverness in going to Haggard directly with the allegations they had from their own previous conversation with the escort. Why Haggard granted them the interview, before his name was even linked to Jones, will never be known.

By the way, some gay bloggers are collecting donations for Jones, which seems a little irrelevant to me. Why not just help him get a book deal?

'Jesus Camp' to shut down

The summer camp for little right-wing Chrstians seen in the documentary "Jesus Camp" will close, the management said.

Associated with disgraced preacher Ted Haggard -- who appears in the film leering directly into the camera: "I think I know what you did last night!... Give me $1000 and I won't tell your wife!"... If you use any of this, I'll sue you. [video clip] -- the camp will close because of negative reaction to the film and to Haggard's fall. Link courtesy PostAnApology and Technorati.

Ironically, the same documentary that had liberal Christians and non-religious people cringing was viewed positively by some irony-challenged evangelicals. You can read this fascinating interview with the filmmakers on the website of Christianity Today, a conservative (though reasonably responsible and not completely foaming at the mouth) Christian magazine.

I am so sorry to see this week end.

Update no. 1: Seattle's The Stranger has a feature, Ted Haggard's Crystal Cathedral -- A Visit to the Gayest Place on Earth. That echoes Salon's Lauren Sandler who wrote a few days ago that "suddenly so much about his ministry feels, well, gay." And The Stranger's Dan Savage has an op-ed making the rounds entitled The Code of the Callboy, referring to the decisions made by escorts about the very rare times they out their clients.

Ted Haggard, Jesus Camp, documentaries, Christianity Today, evangelicals

Sheldon: Christian rightist leaders knew of Haggard's sexuality

Uber-toxic old crypto-fascist Lou Sheldon, one of the biggest foamers of the anti-gay religious right, is said to have admitted that he and "a lot" of other evangelical leaders knew of Ted Haggard's homosexual predilictions:

Sheldon disclosed that he and "a lot" of others knew about Haggard's homosexuality "for awhile ... but we weren't sure just how to deal with it."

Months before a male prostitute publicly revealed Haggard's secret relationship with him, and the reverend’s drug use as well, "Ted and I had a discussion," explained Sheldon, who said Haggard gave him a telltale signal then: "He said homosexuality is genetic. I said, no it isn't. But I just knew he was covering up. They need to say that."

God, just in those quotes there is so much evil and forked-tongued speech. They "weren't sure just how to deal with it"?? Oh, I'm sure any Christianist demagogue would be able to tell a garden-variety fag just how to deal with his homosexuality -- but this wasn't just any gay man, this was one of their own. So rather than treat him the way they would treat someone without power and influence, they froze and shilly-shallied. I'm sure they would have liked this situation to go on forever -- just as the Catholic Church wished all those pedophile priests would eventually just die and the problem would go away -- all because of their totally unrealistic and wishful view of what sex is.

Then there's the smug, superior note: "They need to say that."

A man whose mind stopped functioning long ago, for the most part, except the parts that animate the knee-jerk response.

Also classic is this statement: Speaking of the election results, in which Rick Santorum and several other darlings of the Christian Right were drubbed:

"We know that in America the people are with us," insisted the founder and chairman of the Traditional Values Coalition, one of the largest groups in the Christian right. "They're just confused."

Right, Lou. It's just a PR problem. The American people are confused about what you represent. Sure.

Link to the story courtesy Andrew Sullivan, The Zero Boss.

Lou Sheldon, Ted Haggard, religious right, Traditional Values Coalition, homosexuality, homophobia

All Haggard, all the time

The Rocky Mountain News has a couple of interesting pieces on l'affaire Haggard today:

• In a press conference following Sunday's sermon, the "overseers" charged with investigating Ted Haggard's errors said they would be inspecting his computer hard drive and his finances and will require the disgraced preacher "to take polygraphs and undergo psychological evaluations." They also said they believe "he is still being deceptive about the extent of his sexual activity."
• The RMN also asked local gay pastors to comment on the events.

In the Denver Post, Mike Jones called Haggard's apology "hollow":

Jones said he had sex monthly with Haggard for three years, ending in August. From those sexual encounters, Jones said he believes Haggard is a homosexual, despite having a wife and five children.

"Ted, you need to be honest with yourself," Jones said over the air. "If you're a gay man, you're a gay man."

Somehow I don't think that's the direction the Team Haggard is going.

Update no. 1: On Huffington Post, Harry Shearer: "Of all the people who sprang October surprises, I trust Mike Jones. The former gay hooker, unlike the Iraqi "court" and other late newsmakers, had the balls to say upfront that he was timing his allegations about Ted Haggard's sex life in the hope of affecting the election. Even before Haggard acknowledged the truth of the matter, Jones--who had lie-detector problems--passed the ultimate lie detector: he was telling an obvious truth: he wanted to sway the vote."

And Arianna herself: "Mark Foley and Ted Haggard are textbook examples of how the relentless denial of reality perverts judgment and rots the soul."

Update no. 2: Michelangelo Signorile interviews Mike Jones:

MS: Was he a top or bottom? What was he interested in?

MJ: When I was on the radio show in Denver, the question was asked: Did you practice safe sex? I said, 'We used a condom once." The talk show host goes, "You mean he wore the condom once?" I said, "Uh, no, I did."

MS: What about with oral sex. Was he the passive partner or the active partner?

MJ: You know, it kind of went back and forth --- and I can't say he was very good at it.

Oh, snap! Does this ever stop getting better and better!!?!

Update no. 3 Newsweek also has an interview with Jones, somewhat less colorful.

Ted Haggard, Mike Jones, Larry Stockstill, gay clergy

Dobson inadvertantly confirms some Haggard details

The pope (as it were) of right-wing Christians in Colorado Springs, Focus On The Family head James Dobson, tackled brother Ted Haggard's mess today on his organization's daily broadcast, and along the way confirmed something about Mike Jones' story for the first time.

Up to now, Jones -- the Denver male prostitute whom Haggard called "my accuser" has said that he had a three-year sex-for-pay relationship with Haggard. Haggard denied that early on, and when he subsequently dribbed out various confessions and admissions, it became unclear just what he was confessing to. As Haggard said in his letter to his former church, "The accusations that have been leveled against me are not all true, but enough of them are true that I have been appropriately and lovingly removed from ministry."

Until this morning, no one had said anything about which of the allegations the "board of overseers," appointed by Haggard's church to look into the matter, had confirmed. But this morning Dobson blurted out that Haggard's "sins" had stretched out over "several years." I take that to be a confirmation that either Haggard's visits to Jones had indeed taken place over the three years claimed by Jones, and/or that Haggard had had other same-sex encounters over "several years." We're clear on that now.

Another interesting note was struck by one of Dobson's radio guests, a preacher named Ravi Zacharias, who said twice that problems of "sexual sin" like Haggard's often "begin in the home" and are the result of marital problems and "often a loss of sexual intimacy." (Racy talk for the Christianists!) So all this foofah about how great Haggard's wife is, and how none of this could possibly be her fault -- the implication is that things weren't all that great between them.

Of course, none of this matters, who cares about these people's problems -- EXCEPT for two things. One, these people put themselves on a pedestal as wonderful examples of everything that's good and Christian, and they influence many thousands of people, so it matters when they say one thing and do another; it speaks directly to their credibility. Not only that, but Haggard took part in the weekly teleconference between evangelical leaders and Karl Rove's staff -- he can hardly claim not to have been in a position of power and influence. And two, these were the very people who jumped all over Clinton for his little sexual indiscretion, and you can bet they made hay over that FOR YEARS. So excuse me for talking about this twerp Haggard for a few days.

Finally, there is clearly one aspect of this whole thing the Christian conservatives have decided not to talk about at all: the drug problem. Not a single word on Dobson's broadcast, and not a single word yesterday at Haggard's former church. Isn't that interesting?

Ted Haggard, James Dobson, Ravi Zacharias, rightwingchristians

The devil and Mike Jones

Here's Ted Haggard's letter to his former congregation as printed in the Colorado Springs Gazette. He calls his same-sex desires (if that is what is is referring to) "dark... repulsive... dirt" and offers a curious report on the efficacy of the homophobic, right-wing Christian approach to homosexuality:

Through the years, I've sought assistance in a variety of ways, with none of them proving to be effective in me. Then, because of pride, I began deceiving those I love the most because I didn't want to hurt or disappoint them.

The public person I was wasn't a lie; it was just incomplete. When I stopped communicating about my problems, the darkness increased and finally dominated me. As a result, I did things that were contrary to everything I believe.

So you're saying... that whole approach didn't work out too well, did it? Every consider just facing up to the fact that you're queer and you like taking drugs?

I would love to hear what 12-step people have to say about this.

He does manage to be a man when it comes to Mike Jones, whom he calls "my accuser":

He is revealing the deception and sensuality that was in my life. Those sins, and others, need to be dealt with harshly. So, forgive him and, actually, thank God for him. I am trusting that his action will make me, my wife and family, and ultimately all of you, stronger. He didn't violate you; I did.

The only problem with this is that the word "devil" itself is from the Greek word for "accuser," diabolos. So it could be said that Haggard's statement, while sounding magnanimous, is the epitome of damning with faint praise.

In this accompanying story about the scene at Haggard's church this morning is a more postive note: According to one of the investigating "overseers," a Rev. Larry Stockstill (!), "God chose to reveal pastor Ted's sin."

Okay -- God... the devil... Which is it?

It's a political ploy by Satan himself and his minions to try and take the focus off the real issues of the election.

So... sounds like the jury's still out on that.

Update 1: A Salon.com article on the scene at New Life Church this morning says that suddenly everything about the place "seems so gay."

Update 2: The New York Times also reports on this morning's service: "It was not until a letter was read from Mr. Haggard's wife, Gayle, that the tissue boxes were really needed." Doesn't that sound special.

Update 3: If you have the patience, here is a very long streaming video -- about 30 minutes -- of the entire address to the New Life church by "overseer" Stockstill. Link courtesy JoshMShep (evidently a New Life member).

Earlier:

Colorado Springs Gazette:

They were working late Saturday night at New Life Church. They squeezed extra chairs into every corner of the megachurch's massive auditorium. They placed extra boxes of tissue in every aisle.

Wonder what else they were up to? Writing press releases, probably, and trying to figure how new ways to explain concepts like "hypocrisy" and "pharisee."

Statements of apology (from the disgraced clergyman) and "encouragement" (from his wife [!!]) will be read during the service, which will probably be spoken of as a time of healing. I think it would probably be more effective if they didn't skip the moourning, bargaining and enraged anger steps.

All that remains now is the announcement that Haggard has decided to go into rehab for his drug problem. He might meet Mark Foley -- he's supposed to be in there for another couple days. They would have a lot to talk about.

New Life Church, Ted Haggard, hypocrites