That thing was a hatchet job of the highest order. The guy was so blinded by his hatred for New Life Church and a very red city in a reddish state he was led to write absurd things. He did a companion piece on the city of Colorado Springs (my home town, by the way) and went out of his way to paint one of the most beautiful cities in Colorado--nestled at the base of Pikes Peak--as "ugly." (This is the journalistic equivalent of saying your mother wears Army boots.) For example, he commented on the haze created by a winter inversion layer--a common phenomenon in the winter to anyone who lives in the mountains--to claim the city was smoggy. Gee, why doesn't he go 50 miles north to liberal Denver to see real smog? He commented on the streets downtown (too narrow, apparently).

People I know who attend New Life let him into their houses and attend their Bible studies, and they say the guy was a snake, lying to them about his intentions. (And no, I don't attend New Life.)

Believe what you want about Haggard, but please don't believe the Harper's story. If a city could sue for slander, Colorado Springs should.

... is just icing on the Ted Haggard cake, frankly. Thanks, Hatred Troll!

if you go to his church's website, you can still download his sermons:

http://www.newlifechurch.org/podcast.jsp

i doubt they will offer the phone messages any time soon . . .

...(in a case of serious sour-grapes), someone wrote:

"a story that was months in the making"

No it wasn't. This guy came forward a mere two days ago. Maybe the conspiracy to frameHaggard launched a few months ago, but the timing, four days before an election with gay issues on the ballot, stinks to high heaven.

And I like a guy who takes money for letting men ram their penises into his ass talking about "doing the moral thing."

-- tired of the hatred

*************

I dunno about a conspiracy to frame anyone, but I note that you say nothing about whether you think the story is true.

It is also apparently the case that the accuser has been trying to get this story out there for months now..did I read that right?

Is the story true? *That's* the interesting part. Did Haggard do it? You think he did? Or do you think he didn't?

What's immoral about money for sex? A little sad maybe, but immoral? That's the problem with the moralists among us. They confuse human needs with immorality. Calling prostitution immoral is entirely arbitrary. In many cultures it's been a perfectly acceptable, legal activity.

Now, bashing gays when you're having an affair with a gay prostitute...*that's* immoral. Not the affair (well, ok, I suppose it's immoral that he cheated on his wife.) Nope. It's the lying hypocrisy that's immoral.

But, if you dethroned every powerful right-winger for hypocrisy, there wouldn't be many left to blabber, now would there?

I can't wait to see how the wing-nuts spin this one tomorrow. This is getting fun. Kerry who?

Seems to me there should be little or no doubt about the truth of this since he folded up his tent and resigned so quickly. How long until he enters alcohol rehab and blames it all on the drink?

This is almost as good as all of those "ex-gay" leaders who always get caught hitting on guys in gay bars.

Nobody loves a hypocrite.

I've read foolish and illogical things issuing from the mouth and pen of Richard Dawkins. I say let's go with Dennett instead, I've never found him foolish, nor illogical, yet.

This happens so often, with the guy yelling "gays are bad" or "adultery is evil" being the next one to get caught, that I almost feel that it's actually a cruising technique. I don't know what gay people think about it, but if I were gay and heard someone get on TV and yell "help us combat the homosexual agenda!", I'd immediately think, "wink-wink."

Glad that other people have noticed (or that everyone has noticed?) the hatred troll.

Ted seems to have done the same kinds of stuff with this prostitute guy as Bill did with Monica, except Bill did not have to pay, as far as we know. Can we figure out some way to use this against the right-wingers the way they used Clinton? Can we blow it up and bring Washington to a halt, and use it to get our guy or gal elected?

No. All we can do is pray for peace.

... in the YouTube snippet of the Dawkins documentary, Haggard is no timid shrinking violet, so it would defy sense for him to resign his positions simply because some complete nutjob claims to have had homosexual relations with him.

I mean, would you, Mr/Ms Salon reader resign your own job if a prostitute you had never heard of or met alleged that you were a client? Hell, no, I mean, Good Heavens, no, you would deny and ridicule the allegations as the product of a disturbed mind.

That is why I think there has to be something behind these allegations. People in the public view are the subject of the fantasies of disturbed people all the time, but they don't quit their jobs.

I just read the Harper's article, and while I've never been to Colorado Springs, I hardly think the author merits being called a "snake" for thinking that the Skidmore Owings and Merrill-designed Air Force Academy campus is brutal and a blight on the Rocky Mountain landscape.

That chapel would only look good in Peter Jackson's Mordor.

And that's my purely aesthetic judgment, I'm not even getting into the Academy's coercive religious indoctrination of cadets and widely acknowledged rape problem.

Seems to me there should be little or no doubt about the truth of this since he folded up his tent and resigned so quickly.

Please, people, read the news story! It's part of his church's bylaws that whenever a moral charge is made against a staff member, including the pastor, he steps down (not "resigns") from the position until the board of trustees can investigate the charge.

He has denied the charges several time and has simply done what his church's rules require him to do. It is not an admission of guilt.

Just like the alleged charges in the Nevada governors race of sexual harassment, conveniently timed to just before the election, have been proved bogus (another prostitute, by the way), so too will these.