Just read on the web site for a Denver TV station that Haggard's accuser is refusing to release his so-called evidence. Won't even show it to the AP.

Yeah, this guy has a lot of credibility.

The Religious Right, O so Wrong,

Misspoke for God, O so Long,

Now Misbehaving, in every Pew,

The Self-righteous Pure, will be Few.

...after all this penetrating analysis. He will have to swallow his pride when this scandal reaches its climax.

I just had to ask...if you are proven wrong here, will you publically eat a little crow for us?

It's so seldom the right is willing to eat crow. I'd love to see you eat some. You might want to psych yourself up for it, because odds are pretty high you're gonna be breathin' feathers in the next day or so..

Does this suggest anything specific to anyone?

"Haggard, a married father of five, denied the allegations in an interview with KUSA-TV late Wednesday: 'Never had a gay relationship with anybody, and I'm steady with my wife, I'm faithful to my wife.'"

(from Fox News)

**********

Why do I have the weird feeling that sometime in the next week or so we're going to hear Haggard, or someone speaking for him, essentially say that he just had oral sex with Mike Jones, and that means he really didn't have a "gay relationship" and that he really didn't cheat on his wife?

To quote the immortal Travis McGee "Hear dem bells, in the back of my head.."

I just cannot *wait* to hear the way this one spins out.

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.

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.

... 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.

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.

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.

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.

...(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?