Ted Haggard Is Not Gay. No Really. He’s Really Really Not Gay.
An AP story I saw on The Huffington Post:
AP NewsBreak: Haggard Leaves Colorado
ERIC GORSKI | AP | April 18, 2007 07:37 PM EST
DENVER — The Rev. Ted Haggard moved Wednesday from his longtime home in Colorado Springs to Phoenix, where the disgraced minister will join the same church that helped fallen televangelist Jim Bakker.
Haggard, 50, resigned as president of the National Association of Evangelicals last year, after a former male prostitute alleged a three-year cash-for-sex relationship. The man also said he saw Haggard use methamphetamine. Haggard confessed to undisclosed “sexual immorality” and said he bought meth but never used it.
As part of his severance package from New Life Church, a 14,000-member congregation he started in his basement, Haggard agreed to leave Colorado Springs, a city he helped make an evangelical center.
Rest of the story is here.
The parts I really found interesting were:
… after a former male prostitute alleged a three-year cash-for-sex relationship.
and
… Haggard has told his advisers he does not believe he’s gay.
Well OF COURSE he’s not gay! He just likes to have sex with men. For 3 years. That we know of. That doesn’t mean he’s gay. He’s just “friendly.” He was just getting a massage—a therapeutic massage!—and that guy, who happened to have another entrepreneurial venture as a male prostitute (totally separate line of business, obviously), well that guy just had wandering hands, among other bodily parts, and Ted probably thought at first it was some kind of religious thing. And then he just felt bad about telling this poor lost soul to kindly back the fuck off, which any regular “Not Gay” man would do but Ted is a giver. He clearly must have thought he could bring this poor sinner into the fold and so even though he’s “Not Gay” he kept going back … for 3 years … in the hopes that just maybe Mr. Magic Fingers would see the Jesus light. None of this makes him gay. ‘Cuz that would be really terrible, especially after his vehement preaching at “Jesus Camp” that The Gays are all sinners and going to hell. Let’s see, if Gays = Sinners Going To Hell, and Haggard = Gay, then … um I must be getting my logic arguments wrong. Yes, I’m sure that’s it. I’m sure he’s “Not Gay” just like he “Didn’t Use” the meth. He merely bought it for no reason.
In related news, denial is not just a river in Egypt.