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Bush says he didn't know Haggard all that well. Haggard supported "marriage is between a man and a woman" initiative.
Minister Admits He Bought Drug but Denies Tryst
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN and NEELA BANERJEE
Published: November 4, 2006
After denying that he had ever met a gay escort who claimed to have had a three-year sexual relationship with him, the Rev. Ted Haggard admitted yesterday that he had summoned the escort to give him a massage in a Denver hotel room and bought methamphetamine from him.
But Mr. Haggard, one of the nation’s leading evangelical ministers, maintained that the two men never had sex and that he threw out the drugs without using them.
“I never kept it very long because it was wrong,” Mr. Haggard said, smiling grimly and submitting to questions from a television reporter as he pulled out of his driveway yesterday, his wife, Gayle, silent in the passenger seat. “I was tempted, I bought it, but I never used it.”
Mr. Haggard’s explanation came two days after the male escort, Michael Jones, stepped forward to claim that Mr. Haggard was a monthly client for the last three years. On Thursday, Mr. Haggard had resigned as president of the National Association of Evangelicals and stepped down as pastor of his 14,000-member Colorado Springs megachurch, pending an independent investigation of the accusations.
The escort failed a lie detector test on Friday that he had volunteered to take, but the man who administered the test said the results might have been skewed because Mr. Jones had slept little and was suffering from a migraine. Mr. Jones insisted he was telling the truth and said he would take another lie detector test.
Mr. Haggard’s difficulties are bound to echo beyond his own church, especially on the eve of the midterm elections. He is at the center of several intersecting evangelical power circles and has ties to the Bush administration.
He was an ambassador representing the interests of evangelicals to Washington, and vice versa — participating in the White House’s Monday conference calls with conservative Christian leaders. He was also politically active, championing the fight against same-sex marriage in Colorado and other states.
And Mr. Haggard, 50, was elected president of the National Association of Evangelicals, an umbrella group that represents 45,000 churches.
The association’s executive committee unanimously accepted Mr. Haggard’s resignation on Friday after learning that he had admitted that some of the accusations were true, said the Rev. L. Roy Taylor, chairman of the board of directors and the stated clerk of the Presbyterian Church in America.
“It’s personally difficult to believe, knowing Ted, but theologically, we recognize that we all struggle with a dark side and that sinful behavior is possible for anyone,” Dr. Taylor said.
When Mr. Haggard was elected three years ago as the National Association of Evangelicals’ president, the magazine Christianity Today hailed him as a new kind of evangelical who could revive a flagging organization.
He was younger, less formal and more moderate than many of the bigger names in conservative Christianity. He was soon pushing to add issues like global warming, poverty and genocide in Darfur to the movement’s traditional agenda of opposition to homosexuality and abortion.
“Pastor Ted was a symbolically important figure and a very public figure, so I think the ramifications could be enormous,” said Randall Balmer, a professor of American religious history at Barnard College. “Among evangelicals, there is such a cult of personality that grows up around these various figures.”
In Colorado, Mr. Haggard was a leader in the campaign for Amendment 43, which would define marriage as a union between a man and a woman. Mr. Haggard’s accuser said this was his main motivation for going public with his account of having sex with Mr. Haggard.
In a telephone interview from Denver, Mr. Jones, 49, said, “When the federal marriage amendment came up before the Senate earlier this year, I wanted to see the stance of his church, and the more I read about it, the angrier I got.”
“He’s preaching against homosexuals and yet he’s having gay sex behind people’s backs,” Mr. Jones said.
In an interview with MSNBC, Mr. Jones denied selling methamphetamine to Mr. Haggard, saying he “met someone else that I had hooked him up with to buy it.”
Experts on evangelicals were uncertain how the revelations about Mr. Haggard would affect the midterm elections, and evangelicals’ involvement in politics in the long term. Some experts said accusations that such a politically involved pastor was a closet homosexual could further alienate evangelicals from political involvement, while others said it could motivate them.
Bush says he didn't know Haggard all that well. Haggard supported "marriage is between a man and a woman" initiative.
Minister Admits He Bought Drug but Denies Tryst
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN and NEELA BANERJEE
Published: November 4, 2006
After denying that he had ever met a gay escort who claimed to have had a three-year sexual relationship with him, the Rev. Ted Haggard admitted yesterday that he had summoned the escort to give him a massage in a Denver hotel room and bought methamphetamine from him.
But Mr. Haggard, one of the nation’s leading evangelical ministers, maintained that the two men never had sex and that he threw out the drugs without using them.
“I never kept it very long because it was wrong,” Mr. Haggard said, smiling grimly and submitting to questions from a television reporter as he pulled out of his driveway yesterday, his wife, Gayle, silent in the passenger seat. “I was tempted, I bought it, but I never used it.”
Mr. Haggard’s explanation came two days after the male escort, Michael Jones, stepped forward to claim that Mr. Haggard was a monthly client for the last three years. On Thursday, Mr. Haggard had resigned as president of the National Association of Evangelicals and stepped down as pastor of his 14,000-member Colorado Springs megachurch, pending an independent investigation of the accusations.
The escort failed a lie detector test on Friday that he had volunteered to take, but the man who administered the test said the results might have been skewed because Mr. Jones had slept little and was suffering from a migraine. Mr. Jones insisted he was telling the truth and said he would take another lie detector test.
Mr. Haggard’s difficulties are bound to echo beyond his own church, especially on the eve of the midterm elections. He is at the center of several intersecting evangelical power circles and has ties to the Bush administration.
He was an ambassador representing the interests of evangelicals to Washington, and vice versa — participating in the White House’s Monday conference calls with conservative Christian leaders. He was also politically active, championing the fight against same-sex marriage in Colorado and other states.
And Mr. Haggard, 50, was elected president of the National Association of Evangelicals, an umbrella group that represents 45,000 churches.
The association’s executive committee unanimously accepted Mr. Haggard’s resignation on Friday after learning that he had admitted that some of the accusations were true, said the Rev. L. Roy Taylor, chairman of the board of directors and the stated clerk of the Presbyterian Church in America.
“It’s personally difficult to believe, knowing Ted, but theologically, we recognize that we all struggle with a dark side and that sinful behavior is possible for anyone,” Dr. Taylor said.
When Mr. Haggard was elected three years ago as the National Association of Evangelicals’ president, the magazine Christianity Today hailed him as a new kind of evangelical who could revive a flagging organization.
He was younger, less formal and more moderate than many of the bigger names in conservative Christianity. He was soon pushing to add issues like global warming, poverty and genocide in Darfur to the movement’s traditional agenda of opposition to homosexuality and abortion.
“Pastor Ted was a symbolically important figure and a very public figure, so I think the ramifications could be enormous,” said Randall Balmer, a professor of American religious history at Barnard College. “Among evangelicals, there is such a cult of personality that grows up around these various figures.”
In Colorado, Mr. Haggard was a leader in the campaign for Amendment 43, which would define marriage as a union between a man and a woman. Mr. Haggard’s accuser said this was his main motivation for going public with his account of having sex with Mr. Haggard.
In a telephone interview from Denver, Mr. Jones, 49, said, “When the federal marriage amendment came up before the Senate earlier this year, I wanted to see the stance of his church, and the more I read about it, the angrier I got.”
“He’s preaching against homosexuals and yet he’s having gay sex behind people’s backs,” Mr. Jones said.
In an interview with MSNBC, Mr. Jones denied selling methamphetamine to Mr. Haggard, saying he “met someone else that I had hooked him up with to buy it.”
Experts on evangelicals were uncertain how the revelations about Mr. Haggard would affect the midterm elections, and evangelicals’ involvement in politics in the long term. Some experts said accusations that such a politically involved pastor was a closet homosexual could further alienate evangelicals from political involvement, while others said it could motivate them.
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