Once again a self-appointed spokesman
for “God” and the leader of a politically active (and lucrative)
faith-based empire has been exposed as a hypocritical fraud. Rev. Ted
Haggard, former head of the National Association of Evangelicals and
a well-known anti-gay moral crusader, recently joined an infamous group
with several illustrious members:
– Rev. Henry J. Lyons was forced out
as leader of the National Baptist Convention after his then-wife set
fire to a waterfront mansion the reverend secretly owned with his mistress.
He was convicted in 1999 of swindling millions of dollars from companies
that wanted to do business with members of the denomination. Lyons was
sentenced to five years in prison.
– Archbishop Eugene Marino, a Roman
Catholic prelate from Atlanta, resigned in 1990 after a two-year affair
with a woman half his age. The woman claimed Marino had performed a
marriage ceremony for them in which the two exchanged rings.
– Rev. Terry Hornbuckle, founder of
the Agape Christian Fellowship in Arlington, Texas, was sentenced in
August 2006 to 15 years in prison for sexually assaulting two female
parishioners, as well as a third woman. Two of the victims said the
minister had drugged them.
– Self-proclaimed prophet Pastor Leonard
Ray Owens of Fort Worth, Texas, told a young woman
that a sex spirit and lesbian
demon were inside her and needed to be cast out, police said. The pastor
then asked her to lie on the floor and began yelling at her as if she
were a demon, saying, “Loose her in the name of Jesus,” according
to an arrest warrant affidavit.
The woman told police that
Owens pulled down her pants as he called for the demons to come out.
When she tried to get up, he pushed her down, the affidavit said. The
pastor then began to fight with her as if she were a demon before climbing
on top of her, pinning her down, and raping her, police said.
Then Owens . . . ordered
her to wash her face in the name of Jesus and to read Psalm 105:15,
which says to do no harm to prophets…
But the unholy trinity at the head of
this nefarious group consists of Jim Bakker, Jimmy Swaggart, and Paul
Crouch. The “indiscretions” of Bakker and Swaggart are familiar to most. Paul Crouch’s may be
less so.
According to a September 12, 2004
Los Angeles Timesstory,
Paul Crouch, president of Trinity Broadcasting Network, paid Enoch Lonnie
Ford $425,000 in 1998 in exchange for his silence about an alleged homosexual
affair they’d had in 1996 at a TBN-owned cabin near Lake Arrowhead,
California. As Advocate.comreported,
The world’s largest Christian
broadcasting network responded on Wednesday to recent news articles
about its operations and once again denied a claim by a former employee
that he had a gay affair with its founder. The Trinity Broadcasting
Network issued a press release claiming that articles published by the
Los Angeles Times over the past week failed to accurately depict
the Costa Mesa-based organization in a fair light. “The newspaper's
publisher has its own agenda,” said TBN spokesperson Colby May. “Its
reporting has been selective and subjective.” [The LA Times has run over 3000 stories about Crouch and TBN.]
The strong response from
the Christian TV network comes after recent stories by the Times that showed its founder, Paul Crouch and his wife, Jan Crouch, earn
more than $750,000 together in salaries and have an array of luxuries
at their ready, including a TBN-owned jet and 30 homes across the United
States. The Orange County-based network collects more than $120 million
a year from viewers in dozens of countries, and it maintains much of
the money helps the needy. The network in its statement defended its
financial practices and said long-term contracts and capital projects
require extensive cash reserves.
TBN denied Crouch had had a homosexual
affair, but confirmed the hush money paid to Ford under a “secret
agreement.” Why would Crouch pay hush money – under a “secret
agreement” – if there were nothing to hush-up, secretly?
Crouch’s denial was as believable as
the ones Ted Haggard initially offered when his relationship with a
male prostitute and drug use were exposed:
Haggard said he never had
sex with Jones and never used the methamphetamine drug he bought.
He told reporters earlier
this week that he did not know Jones, who claims to have had a three-year
sex-for-money relationship with him.
Haggard, 50, resigned Thursday
as leader of the National Association of Evangelicals – a group representing
more than 45,000 churches and 30 million people – and he also stepped
down temporarily from leadership at New Life Church in Colorado Springs.
He was one of a group of
religious leaders who regularly participated in conference calls with
White House aides.
Haggard told CNN affiliate
KUSA-TV Friday that he received Jones’ name as “a referral” from
a hotel where he was staying in Denver.
He did not name the hotel.
“I did call him,” Haggard said. “I called him to buy some meth,
but I threw it away.”
“I was buying it for me
but I never used it. I was tempted, I bought it, but I never used it.”
“He told me about it. I
went there for a massage.” [link added]
Right from the start, the lies were transparent.
Why would Haggard contact a prominent local male prostitute for “a
massage”? If he did get Jones’ name as “‘a referral’ from
a hotel where he was staying in Denver,” one has to wonder what kind
of hotel Rev. Haggard had chosen to patronize, and why. Those who claim
to be defending moral purity and “God’s will” would surely check out business they patronized before patronizing them, wouldn’t
they?
That Haggard admitted buying crystal
meth – a favorite snort of some gay men out for a night of unbridled
SEX – but then said he “threw it away” sounds like a bad imitation
of Bill Clinton’s “I didn't inhale.” Much more telling are the
two voicemail messages from Haggard – who called himself “Art”
– that Mike Jones provided Denver talk radio station KHOW.
The first cast very serious doubt
on the “explanation” Haggard offered: “Hi Mike, this is Art. Hey,
I was just calling to see if we could get any more. Either $100
or $200 supply” [italics added].
As Jones noted – and any drug user
can confirm – “supply” means the drug being sought. Haggard’s
asking “if we could get any more” clearly suggests he had
used meth before and that he liked it – and the sex that followed
– and wanted more.
The second voicemail attests to Haggard’s
persistence: “Hi Mike, this is Art, I am here in Denver and sorry
that I missed you. But as I said, if you want to go ahead and get the
stuff, then that would be great. And I’ll get it sometime next week
or the week after or whenever.” Clearly, another tryst with
Jones was in Haggard’s plans, not the singular “massage” meeting
he claimed he’d had with Mr. Jones.
As Mr. Jones said, “The more denial
he gives, the messier he looks.” That statement was included in the
November 4, 2005 CNN story titled “Church forces out Haggard for ‘sexually immoral conduct’”:
The Rev. Ted Haggard agreed
Saturday to resign as leader of the megachurch he started in his basement
more than 20 years ago after its independent investigative board said
he was guilty of “sexually immoral conduct.”
Finally, in a November 5, 2006 letter to his former congregation Haggard admitted a “lifelong” sexual problem. The only real “problems” that Haggard had
was being untrue to himself and living a lie: “I am a deceiver and
a liar,” as he put it.
But the “confession” – though plaintive
and self-deprecating – stopped short of openly admitting the truth,
but it did expose the “ex-gay” myth yet again.
Parts of Haggard’s “confession”
were cloaked in oblique statements such as
There is a part of my life
that is so repulsive and dark that I’ve been warring against it all
of my adult life. … The public person I was wasn’t a lie; it was
just incomplete. … The accusations that have been leveled against
me are not all true…
“There is a part of my life that is
so repulsive and dark that I’ve been warring against it all of my
adult life”? Does that mean his homosexuality or the fact that he’s
been “a deceiver and a liar” of pathological proportions?
If it means his sexuality – as would
seem likely – does that mean he was an active homosexual in his earlier
years, and perhaps even beyond his trysts with Mr. Jones? He did say
“Through the years, I’ve sought assistance in a variety of ways,
with none of them proving to be effective in me.” So much for the
efficacy of “ex-gay” therapies even for the evangelically motivated.
“The public person I was wasn’t a
lie; it was just incomplete.” Word-splitting at its evangelical best.
The “public person” and the public things that public person said
were not just “incomplete.” He was an outright fraud and his statements
were hypocritically disingenuous.
“The accusations that have been leveled
against me are not all true…” Well, which ones are and which ones
aren’t? If you’re “confessing,” do it with clarity and honesty,
Mr. Haggard, and then offer some proof. Credibility is not your forte.
For his part, Mike Jones was straightforward
from the beginning and truly “Christian” at the end of his Advocate.cominterview. Some excerpts…
When did you first meet
Ted Haggard? Roughly three years ago. I never asked him how he
found my number, but I guess it was from a Web site or a newspaper somewhere,
because I was advertising at the time as a male escort. When I answered
the phone, he indicated he was visiting from Kansas City and that his
name was Art. For the first year, he called from a blocked number, then
mostly from pay phones from the Colorado Springs area.
When did you first realize
who he was? In the spring of 2006. I was lying on the couch, relaxing,
watching the History Channel – a show on the DaVinci Code and the
antichrist. All of a sudden, his face came up. They were interviewing
him. It was Art. I didn’t get his name, so in my mind I was thinking,
I’m going to order a copy of this show, just so I can see who this
guy is. To me it was a coincidence. The very next morning at 5 a.m.,
I was at the gym working out on the treadmill. Somebody the night before
had turned the TV to the religious channel and there he was. When I
got home and looked him up on the computer, I was like, “Ted Haggard…oh,
crap…this guy’s huge.” …
When was the last time
you saw him? August 7 or 8. I had seen him two or three times after
I knew who he was. It was weird. I was really contemplating telling
him, “Hey, I know who you are.” I didn’t. I never brought it up
to him. And of course, he never offered. He was not emotional at all.
He’d pop on over, we’d [have sex]. It was pretty bland. He was never
here more than an hour. The only thing he divulged to me at one time
was that he was married. He did not seem nervous to me at all.
When did drugs come into
the picture? About two years ago he asked, “Hey, Mike, what do
you know about meth? I don’t do it personally, but I know people who
do.” I told him that some people think it enhances their sexual experience.
He asked if I could help him get some. I located someone he could connect
with. After that, he got it on his own. The last time he saw me, he
was trying to get some and couldn’t, which resulted in him sending
me money though the mail in August, postmarked Colorado Springs. He
wrote “Art” on the corner of the envelope. I just read that his
middle name is Arthur. …
What are your hopes, if
any, for Ted Haggard? You know, I wish him peace. …
“I wish him peace.” Perhaps bible-thumping
anti-gay bigots – and their fellow Republican hypocrites – might want to take note of that Christian
virtue and declare peace with reality and offer it to their fellow human
beings.
Haggard offered a seemingly similar statement
at the end of his confession, but did so with the usual unctuous spin
of moral superiority, a hallmark of evangelicals: “Please forgive
my accuser…”
What’s to forgive? Jones told the truth
about himself and Haggard, something the “deceiver and liar” has
still not completely done.
And the game goes on…
(Publisher's note: Mel has been hounded by the American Family
Association and other Evangelist Christian groups for a numbers of
months now. He has written about it 1.several2.times 3.here at Atlantic Free Press. The hypocrisy in this case is truly tangible - but its certainly not the first time we have seen it within evangelical circles.)
Why are christians so obsessed with other peoples sexuality..so obsessed with sex, gender and genitals…really, don’t they worry about real stuff , like poverty, famine, environmental degradation, war and pestilence, the rich gettting richer and the poor getting more destitute.
Why do they get so obessed with homosexuals, claiming it is a threat to the family ..HOW? if your husband runs off with the hussy next door, how can it be the fault of gays/lesbians? How can gays/lesbians be responsible for 50% divorce rate ( incidentally highest divorce are in the bible belt ha ha ).
If your son does drug and your daughter gets laid while on booze - how is that the fault of gays/lesbians. Christians historically sought out scape-goats..they used to blame Jews, then blacks, then gypsies , then women and now since it is no longer fashionable to blame jews or blacks etc, they have to pick on vulnerable minorities like gays and lesbians.
Hitler did not kill 6 million jews in a vacuum. Centuries of marginalization and denigration and demonizing of jews as Jesus killer enable common german citizens to exercise false moral authority in killing jews. In like fashion centuries of demonizing and denigration of homosexuals embolden wicked and otherwise morally bankrupt ‘straight’ bigots to descrimiaate and do violence to gay and lesbian and other sexual minorities .
Furthermore picking on a scape-goat makes christians feel superior and ‘saved’. Denigrating others is easier than exercising love,charity and compassion which is actually the most basic teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. Sadly Christians hardly practise the most important commandemt of Jesus ie. Love God then immediately love your neighbour as yourself ( be he/she gay or staight).
It is AMAZING HOW MANY PEOPLE CALL THEMSELVES CHRISTIANS WHEN THEY IN FACT DO NOT PRACTISE THE MOST IMPORTANT COMMANDMENT OF JESUS !!! THEY WOULD RATHER BE HYPOCRITES AND BE LIKE THE PHARASEES OF OLD DUUUH !
mikhail - a child of the Universe
1
March 02, 2007
Ada Wakeman: ...
It is very painful to see that for more reverends and priests all this became just a job, and not an abnegation... well, we can't trust neither the church now, not only the politicians. Ada drug treatment
2
November 23, 2007
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Opinion 
Once again a self-appointed spokesman
for “God” and the leader of a politically active (and lucrative)
faith-based empire has been exposed as a hypocritical fraud. Rev. Ted
Haggard, former head of the National Association of Evangelicals and
a well-known anti-gay moral crusader, recently joined an infamous group
with several illustrious members: 
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