Another Christian Right crusader revealed to be "getting it" on the side

The Associated Press (Catherine Tsai bylined) yesterday reported another major opponent of gay rights who has been having gay sex "on the side" (that is, outside his marriage).  Like fellow hypocrite Mark Foley (R-Florida), the Republican zealot on protecting youth from Internet predators while hitting on congressional pages, Rev. Ted Haggard, "the head of the 30 million-member National Association of Evangelicals, a vocal opponent of same-sex marriage, resigned Thursday after being accused of paying for sex with a man in monthly trysts over the past three years".  Haggard, the married father of five who has been called "one of the most influential evangelical Christians in the nation" also stepped aside as head of his 14,000-member New Life Church while a church panel investigates.

Mike Jones, 49, of Denver told The Associated Press he decided to go public with his allegations because of the political fight. Jones, who said he is gay, said he was upset when he discovered Haggard and the New Life Church had publicly opposed same-sex marriage.  "It made me angry that here's someone preaching about gay marriage and going behind the scenes having gay sex," said Jones, who added that he isn't working for any political group.

Jones, whose allegations  first aired on KHOW-AM radio in Denver, said that Haggard paid him to have sex nearly every month over three years. Jones also said Haggard snorted methamphetamine before their sexual encounters to heighten his experience (a detail very much in fitting with the pattern of closeted men seeking homosexual sex, as Andrew Sullivan's blog pointed out; and given the wilting effect of crystal meth, this suggests that Haggard was the insertee rather than the insertor in the ongoing relationship; also very closeted, married men are usually receptive when they have sex with another man).

Jones said that he had advertised himself as an escort on the Internet and that a man who called himself Art contacted him. Jones said he later saw the man on television identified as Haggard. He said that he last had sex with Haggard in August.

Jones said he has voice mail messages from Haggard, as well as an envelope he said Haggard used to mail him cash, "There's some stuff on there (the voice mails) that's pretty damning," he told an AP reporter.

Haggard, who is about 50, was appointed president of the evangelicals association in March 2003. He has participated in conservative Christian leaders' conference calls with White House staffers and lobbied members of Congress last year on U.S. Supreme Court appointees. 

After Massachusetts legalized gay marriage in 2004, Haggard and others began organizing state-by-state opposition. Last year, Haggard and officials from the nearby Christian ministry Focus on the Family announced plans to push Colorado's gay marriage ban for the 2006 ballot.

At the time, Haggard said that he believed marriage is a union between a man and woman rooted in centuries of tradition, and that research shows it's the best family unit for children (misrepresenting the research of Judith Stacey that found that having two parents was correlated with a number of positive outcomes for children, <b>but that the difference was between single-parent and two-parent households, regardless of whether the two were of the same sex or different sexes</b>.

Voters in Colorado and seven other states are voting next Tuesday on amendments banning gay marriage, which "cultural conservatives" hope will encourage Republicans voters to turn out despite the widespread unhappiness with the Republican government's botched Iraq occupation and burgeoning spending.

Colorado Springs has been (sorry, I can't resist it) the wellspring of anti-gay rights initiatives. Not committing adultery is enshrined in the Ten Commandments, although the National Association of Evangelicals and other Christianists heavily involved in politics have found demonizing openly gay men an easier sell than dealing with adulterers and closeted men denouncing homosexuality while practicing it in secret (what sociologist Laud Humphreys called "buckling the breastplate of righteousness" in public to divert any scrutiny of "secret deviance").