Republicans like to use writing as cover for affairs

South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, whose recent unexplained absence from his state for four days was first explained that he was hiking the Appalacian Trail and then that he was "writing something," admitted today that he had actually spent the weekend in Argentina, fucking his girlfriend.

The writing excuse sounded suspicious to me because you may remember that one of Ted Haggard's excuses for his frequent trips to Denver was that he liked to hole up in a hotel room to work on his books. Of course, he was holing up in a hotel room for different purposes. But isn't it funny that this has become a common excuse?

In light of this, perhaps we should wonder about the recent announcement that Dick Cheney is working on a memoir. Yeah sure, Dick! Since when did you need an excuse to disappear for weeks at a time in the first place? The "undisclosed location" excuse is still good as far as I'm concerned.

technorati: Mark Sanford, writing, Cheney

Focus on the Fundies: Haggard refuses to go away

Though he dropped off the radar for a few months after the excruciating HBO broadcast of the documentary film about him, former evangelical leader Ted Haggard is back in the news pages of the Colorado Springs Gazette, which continues to cover him the way the FBI tails former KGBers in the U.S. Included in the latest visit with the disgraced megachurch ringmaster is a scolding and eventual forgiveness by a former church member, as well as the news that Haggard and his wife are appearing on an upcoming episode of the TV show Divorce Court. Yes! And it's a two part episode, starting appropriately enough on April Fools Day. Behold!

I'll pause while you pick your jaw up off the floor.

Oh, and he's going to begin guest-preaching at Colorado Springs megachurches, billed as "a Christian businessman," a nod to his current supposed career as insurance salesman. And thus begins his real rehabilitation -- not the one he supposedly underwent soon after his outing that supposedly turned him back into a heterosexual, but the one that will inevitably return him to the only job he can do: evangelical preacher.

technorati: Ted Haggard, Colorado Springs, evangelicals

Focus on the Fundies: Skeleton springs out of Haggard's closet

The other shoe has dropped in the latest Ted Haggard scandal, as the young former congregation member of New Life Church publicly discusses how Haggard masturbated in front of him, offered him pills of some sort, and confided that "You can be a man of God and have a little bit of fun on the side."

Meanwhile, Haggard himself appeared on the Oprah show, his successor at New Life Church revealed that Haggard had several inappropriate relationships, and a Colorado Springs bail bondsman and amateur investigator is looking into the financial and legal aspects of l'affaire Haggard.

To top it all off, Haggard's wife Gayle told Oprah that he'd told her years ago that he struggled with same-sex attractions, or, as she put it, "some thoughts."

This story is truly a gift that keeps on giving.

technorati: Ted Haggard

Focus on the Fundies: Ted Haggard may have another skeleton in closet

Now that disgraced former pastor Ted Haggard is promoting an upcoming HBO documentary about his 2006 outing and firing, the folks at his former church are none too happy about it. The current head of the congregation, seemingly resentful that Haggard is back in the public eye, has revealed that a former church volunteer alleged a consensual gay affair with the one-time evangelical superstar.

The documentary, by Alexandra Pelosi (daughter of the House Speaker), premieres on HBO this coming Thursday.

A Colorado Springs religion columnist separately interviewed Pelosi and Haggard, and also uncovers an odd note. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi denied she ever met Haggard after the disgraced preacher said in an interview in US News and World Report that she comforted him while her daughter was shooting the film. Here's the statement from her office.

technorati: Ted Haggard, New Life Church, Colorado Springs

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.

technorati: Ted Haggard, HBO, documentary

Focus on the Fundies: Haggard says 'I never said I was heterosexual'

The Colorado Springs paper has seen the documentary "The Rise and Fall of Ted Haggard," which will be shown on HBO next month, and has these tidbits:

• Haggard, pronounced "one hundred percent heterosexual" after his three-week rehabilitation experience following his 2006 implosion, says "he never claimed to be heterosexual, as was once reported, and he continues to struggle with same-sex attraction. But he's committed to living a heterosexual life because he believes it's better for children to be raised by a mother and a father."
• Haggard's wife says she stayed with him to restore honor to the family, in some mixed-up way.
• Haggard now works selling insurance -- not so far from being a salvation-selling preacher -- but has not yet been successful at it and says, "Right now, I am a loser."

He sure comes off that way. Welcome to the real world, Ted! Maybe that other foamer will have to get a job, too.

Update: On Open.Salon.com, a former member of Haggard's church and babysitter for Haggard's children comments on his attempts to parlay the documentary into more fame.

technorati: Ted Haggard, New Life Church, Colorado Springs

Focus on the Fundies: Haggard pushes himself back in the spotlight

Ted Haggard, the disgraced megachurch leader whose outing as a meth-snorting Big Gay embarrassed the Christian Right just prior to the 2006 midterm elections, has agreed to promote an HBO documentary about his rise and fall.

The documentary, "The Trials of Ted Haggard," was shot by Alexandra Pelosi, who earlier made an HBO documentary "Friends of God," which also featured Haggard. The film is scheduled to air on HBO next month.

Haggard startled observers earlier this fall by appearing in the pulpit of a rural Illinois megachurch as a "Christian businessman" talking of his rise an fall as a star of the conservative Christian Evangelical movement, and now he's pushing himself into the spotlight on television. It's not enough for him to appear in a documentary; he's so starved for attention that he also signs on to promote the film, which I suspect will show him as a complete lying douchebag. What a media whore!

technorati: Ted Haggard, fundamentalists, Alexandra Pelosi

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

Reporter visits New Life Church, manages not to mention Ted Haggard

On Huffington Post, a reporter visits Colorado Springs, and writes 1600 words about New Life Church without mentioning its disgraced founder Ted Haggard. How impressively fair.

Strangest thing in the story is her description of "a half-used tray of communion wine, its thimbles of juice with frayed pull-tops." They have little bitty juice containers with pull-tops for communion? Now that's déclassé.

technorati: New Life Church, Colorado Springs, Ted Haggard

John Edwards: 'I am a straight American'

Over the years, along with the rest of the country, I've marveled over the tendency of celebrities to fuck around. When their miserable attempts at having a secret sex life were revealed, I wrote about Bill Clinton, Ted Haggard, and others. Now John Edwards joins them.

This Marueen Dowd column, though rather drawn out, pretty much sums it up:

For some reason, super-strivers have a need to sell what is secretly weakest about themselves, as if they yearn for unmasking. Edwards's decency and concern for the weak in society -- except for his own wife. Bill Clinton's intellect and love of community -- except for his stupidity and destructiveness about Monica. Bush the Younger's jocular, I'm-in-charge self-confidence -- except for turning over his presidency, as no president ever has, to his Veep. Eliot Spitzer's crusade for truth, justice and the American way -- except at home.

This urge, as DowD identifies it, has long been satisfied by famous, powerful men by seeing prostitutes, especially dominatrices. But as Spitzer and the FBI demonstrated, you can't even fuck a prostitute in private these days without getting accidentally caught up in some racketeering investigation.

Clearly the only solution is that pursued by Rudolph Giuliani: Fuck someone else and act like you don't care who knows it.

technorati: John Edwards, adultery

Focus on the Fundies: Haggard back home, just in time for Gay Pride

Ted Haggard has left the "rehabilitation program" that was supposed to turn him into a heterosexual and has returned to Colorado Springs with a shameless appeal to former supporters:

It looks as though it will take two years for us to have adequate earning power again, so we are looking for people who will help us monthly for two years.... Between now and the end of the year, we have to find the people who want to help us transition into our future. So I am starting today to let friends like you know that we are raising money ...

The story goes on to say that Haggard is living in the same Colorado Springs mansion he lived in when running a magachurch there. And there are still five big cars in the driveway.

In an email to a "friend," Haggard admitted using drugs with male prostitute Mike Jones, whose revelations to Colorado TV stations outed him just before the 2006 election

technorati: Ted Haggard

Haggard's molester buddy: I had no idea

The Colorado Springs Gazette finally caught up to the story on Haggard's fundraising letter, interviewing Paul Huberty -- the registered sex offender whose organization Families with a Mission Haggard said would collect donations to him "if you want a tax deduction" for supporting the disgraced minister. According to Huberty, he had no agreement with Haggard to collect funds for him.

It gets better. The head of the "Dream Center" halfway house in downtown Phoenix said Haggard will not be working there, contrary to his letter. The Associated Press quotes a minister associated with the church that runs the halfway house: "That was premature. That is not part of his restoration plan. I think he visited the Dream Center saw it was a good place for people to rehab and got excited."

Now that's a disturbing image.

Makes you wonder what Haggard was on when he sent that fundraising appeal, which you can read in its entirety here. And Dan Savage, who has been covering the latest news with relish, posts updates.

technorati: Ted Haggard, fundamentalists, closet cases

More on Haggard: His new buddy is a registered sex offender

Courtesy Colorado Confidential, a posting from Stranger columnist Dan Savage that follows up on the story I posted about yesterday. It seems the person heading the organization Haggard is asking followers to send money to is actually a registered sex offender. Read the details.

Some of my favorite blog entries on the story:

• A 32-year-old MySpace user "Religious Heather," whose page is named "sinnersmustdie," says "Do not support this sinner!!! Why doesn't he try to get a REAL job like the rest of us and not be bitter about being a religious hypocrite? I mean, if you're going to be holy, then don't fudge-pack male prostitutes. Atleast go to a gay bar like a lot of closet married men and get it for free. Nevermind -- I've seen what he looks like. No wonder he has to pay for it!"


• A blog named "Revolution" says "I have three words for this jerk-off who is responsible for giving pastors everywhere a bad name and setting us back, yet again, to the Swaggart-Baker era: GET A JOB!"

Haggard, after raking in six figures, begs followers for money

Showing that a televangelist's greatest asset is his email database, disgraced fundie pastor Ted Haggard has sent followers a letter begging for money despite having made more than $300,000 since the beginning of 2006. Haggard's religious "overseers" sound pissed that he did something like this without asking them, but the really great thing in the story is how he's moving his whole family, including his two boys who are aged something like 9 and 12, into a halfway house in downtown Phoenix with former convicts, drug dealers, prostitutes and "street kids."

I'm sure that's the kind of terrific judgment he's going to show once he gets his degree in "counseling" from the University of Phoenix. How'd you like to have him as your shrink?

technorati: Ted Haggard, fundamentalists, televangelists

Mike Jones in NYT

Mike Jones, the male escort who exposed right-wing evangelist Ted Haggard, is interviewed in the NYT magazine today.

And perhaps not so coincidentally, the Colorado Springs Gazette interviews the interim leaders of Haggard's former church. Though most of the interview is behind a subscription wall, they do have the answer to the fascinating question: "Did Mike Jones do New Life (Church) a favor" by exposing Haggard?

Focus on the Fundies: Baptist suggests no right to life for 'gay' fetuses

An influential pastor of the arch-conservative Southern Baptist persuasion has wondered aloud whether if homosexuality is indeed found to be biological in origin, should his followers eliminate "gay" fetuses, perhaps by wearing some sort of patch that prevented their birth?

Here is where the line blurs between someone has the ability to be a real visionary, and someone whose shriveled, scorched-earth version of religion has instead caused him to be a raving paranoid. In fact, it's quite a leap in the first place for one of these foamers to even admit to the possibility that homosexuality could have a biological component, because that would imply -- to someone with a somewhat more expansive soul -- that God created some people gay and thus it might not be as bad as they've always thought it is. No, instead this thought leads him to wonder what "you could do about it" (emphasis mine) in order to keep the putative queer from sin.

In an interview on Friday, Mohler said that Christian couples "should be open" to the prospect of changing the course of nature -- if a biological marker for homosexuality were to be found. He would not support gene therapy but might back other treatments, such as a hormonal patch.

"I think any Christian couple would want their child to be whole and healthy," he said. "Knowing that that child is going to be a sinner, we would not want to make their personal challenges more difficult if they could be less difficult."

Actually, there is some foundation in Christian teaching for what I think this fellow is proposing. Jesus himself is quoted as saying "if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire." (Matt. 18:9). I think this is what Mohler is getting at: what's the difference between a roving eye and a putatively sinful fetus? Why not keep the fetus from existing in the first place?

So the amazing thing about this cluck is not merely that he is suggesting the possibility of a biological basis for homosexuality, but that he is envisioning something that could actually justify abortion. You know, I always wondered who the foamers hated worse, women or gays. Now we know. They'd rather see women have a right to abortion if it meant the elimination of homosexuality.

Then, low down in the article is the real reason the guy's upset:

Homosexuality is a "huge challenge" to Christianity, said Mohler, referring, in part, to the Rev. Ted Haggard, former president of the National Association of Evangelicals, who was forced to step down last November because of a gay sex scandal. And the Rev. Lonnie Latham, a member of the executive committee of the Southern Baptist Convention, was embroiled in a gay sex scandal but was found not guilty of having solicited sex from another man.

"In our churches and in our families there are people struggling with homosexuality and for a long time this was kind of hidden," Mohler said in the interview. "It is no longer hidden, and the fact is we've got to be coming up with genuinely Christian responses to Christians who are in this struggle."

Yes, even Brother Mohler understands that Ted Haggard is lying when he says he emerged from his rehab "one hundred percent heterosexual." And it scares the crap out of him. If fine upstanding preachers like Ted and Lonnie can be queer, how can he risk closing his eyes during the next men's prayer meeting? Some cocksucker might be sneaking up on him.

technorati: fundies, Baptists, abortion, homosexuality, homophobia, crypto-fascists

Focus on the Fundies: Latham found not guilty

Remember Oklahoma Baptist pastor Lonnie Latham, arrested in January 2006 for soliciting sex from a male undercover cop? Yes, that was a long time ago. Well, his case finally came to trial late last month and a jury found him not guilty, apparently convinced by his lawyer's argument that since homosexual sex is not illegal, then it shouldn't be illegal to talk about it or invite someone to a hotel room to do it. (Link courtesy Christianity Today weblog.)

The Tulsa newspaper did not manage to ask Latham the larger questions of whether he is gay or whether he regrets speaking out -- as he reportedly did when a pastor of a large Baptist church in Tulsa -- against gays and gay rights. Or even if he plans to resume his career as a minister.

Perhaps he will, like Ted Haggard, pursue a degree in psychology. Maybe they could even open up a practice together. I think there'd be plenty of business from others just like them.

technorati: Ted Haggard, Lonnie Latham, closet cases, religious right, hypocrites

Focus on the Fundies: Haggard's church in 12% staff layoff

New Life Church, the former fiefdom of Ted Haggard, has suffered such a drop in attendance and donations that it has been forced to lay off 44 staffers, about 12% of its 350-strong workforce.

Of course it's not just the drop in attendance and dough. They also paid at least $130,000 as go-away money to the formerly influental Republican fund-raiser and secret cock-sucking meth snorter. That could have paid for more than a few staffers, because I'll bet most of the minions at a place like that get paid pretty bad -- and are expected to tithe ten percent of it back to their employer, to boot.

In other news, a blogger asks, "Why is Ann Coulter the darling of the religious right?" That's a good question, as she ought to scare them nearly as much as she does blue-staters. But by calling John Edwards a faggot, she showed how much she has in common with foamers like Rod Parsley and Ken Blackwell.

In other news, there's a new book out called The Jesus Machine, about James Dobson and his ilk; its author was interviewed on Terry Gross today. Contrary to the book's subtitle ("How James Dobson, Focus on the Family, and Evangelical America Are Winning the Culture War"), the interview was mainly about how the generation of Dobson and Jerry Falwell is about to pass from the scene and the Christianists have no one obvious to replace him with, especially now that Haggard is out.

technorati: Ted Haggard, James Dobson, Jesus Machine, New Life Church, John Edwards, Ann Coulter

Restructuing, layoffs at Haggard's former church

Staff layoffs are ahead for the former church of exposed Big Gay drugs user and hypocrite Ted Haggard, the Colo. Springs Gazette reported today; the layoffs amount to between 30 and 50 people, according to local TV station. Contributions are no doubt down at New Life CHurch, Haggard's former fief.

This gives me an irresistible opportuntiy to quote from Jeff Sharlett's 2005 profile of Haggard and New Life Church.

New Lifers, Pastor Ted writes with evident pride, "like the benefits, risks, and maybe above all, the excitement of a free-market society." They like the stimulation of a new brand. "Have you ever switched your toothpaste brand, just for the fun of it?" Pastor Ted asks. Admit it, he insists. All the way home, you felt a "secret little thrill," as excited questions ran through your mind: "Will it make my teeth whiter? My breath fresher?" This is the sensation Ted wants pastors to bring to the Christian experience.

Now that we know more about Pastor Ted's "secret little thrills," passages like that one are priceless.

technorati: Ted Haggard, New Life Church

End of the Haggard era: 'Overseers' give report

The committee of "overseers" of Ted Haggard's church -- a group of evangelical pastor-CEOs hired to hash out the hypocrite's exit from their ranks and "restore" him to blessed (though secular) heterosexuality -- today gave a report to Haggard's former congregation. Among the interesting revelations:

• They found "numerous individuals who reported to us firsthand
  knowledge of everything from sordid conversation to overt suggestions to improper activities to improper relationships."
• The three-year relationship with gay prostitute Mike Jones was only the "culmination" of this "pattern of behavior."
• They consider Jones' outing of Haggard not a betrayal but "a matter of grace" that allowed Haggard's perfidy to be exposed. It was "not only warranted, but also merciful to him and to the church.
• Haggard's "enormous personality" is the main reason he had to leave not only his own church but, apparently, the whole state.
• The church "will continue to support Haggard and his family through 2007." (It should be noted that the sale of the very large Haggard mansion, which was his property, should net over a million dollars, and it will be much cheaper to live where he said he would move to, Iowa or Missouri, so Haggard was hardly in need of this golden parachute.) They also paid for the three weeks of "counseling" that Haggard bragged had been equal to three years of therapy.
• Their "investigation is not complete;" indeed, they say they are still tracking down "rumors."

What fun for them. There's something of the Puritanical zeal of Kenneth Starr in these overseers. I think their whole thing has developed into some kind of parable for the evangelicals. What happened to Haggard -- disgrace and magnanimous forgiveness -- is, no doubt, what they hoped to do to Bill Clinton.

Here's the main story from the local paper on the scene at Haggard's former church. Among the added details is that Haggard's former salary was $130,000 and that this amount is roughly equal to the cash La Familie Haggard will receive as "support," called by some commentators hush money or a payoff.

technorati: Ted Haggard, New Life Church, fundamentalists