Billmon:
Good luck in your future endeavours, Ted. You’re going to need it.
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November 4, 2006
WB: Rocky Mountain High
Comments
It was the Republicans who made a policy of painting the specter of pederasty and drug abuse behind every homosexual (Senator Santorum went as far as to equate it with wife-beating, child abuse and bestiality).
Strange to see how many of their own fit the bill.
Posted by: ralphieboy | Nov 4 2006 21:42 utc | 1
The Carpetbagger Report mentions this about Pastor Ted:
… So, is this a time for some schadenfreude? Not really. It’s true that Haggard was vehemently anti-gay, and if he did engage in a gay affair, it causes the evangelical movement some additional embarrassment.
But it’s also worth remembering that in a broad movement, Haggard was occasionally a voice of reason. Over the summer, for example, when there was a growing debate about the American use of torture on suspected terrorists, Haggard stepped up to sign a joint statement that said torture “violates the basic dignity of the human person” and “contradicts our nation’s most cherished values.” The statement added, “Nothing less is at stake in the torture abuse crisis than the soul of our nation. What does it signify if torture is condemned in word but allowed in deed?”
Moreover, Haggard’s National Association of Evangelicals was one of a handful of Christian groups to show some leadership in dealing with global warming, and pressured the Bush administration to change its position.
For that matter, when Pat Robertson called for Hugo Chavez’s assassination, Haggard also told a reporter, “Pat doesn’t speak for evangelicals any more than Dr. Phil speaks for mental health professionals.”
I guess my point is, if a major evangelical leader was going to get caught in a gay sex scandal, I would have preferred it to be James Dobson instead of Ted Haggard.
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/8943.html
I am stuck on Tuesday voting for a Democratic senator who supported the torture bill against the harpy who got an unelected George Bush into the White House. What a choice! I hope I can get in and finish voting before I barf.
Posted by: Ensley | Nov 4 2006 21:58 utc | 2
From b in old haggard thread:
“Ted Haggard, the head of the 30-million strong National Association of Evangelicals, jokes that the only disagreement between himself and the leader of the Western world is automotive: Mr. Bush drives a Ford pickup, whereas he prefers a Chevy.”
Like a Rock
Posted by: fauxreal | Nov 4 2006 22:41 utc | 4
Billmon need not lose sleep over Mister Haggard’s future prospects. He has a golden parachute from his New Life corporation, and it will be very much in the interests of the Church Board to leave his retainer, insurance policies, pension and other considerations in place.
So that Mister Haggard will not feel the need to write a tell all book, just to raise a few bucks for diapers, groceries, and some of that throwaway meth.
The overwhelmingly best interests of all souls involved is to tuck this one in for the night as quickly and politely as possible.
Posted by: Antifa | Nov 4 2006 22:56 utc | 5
Oh no. They’ll welcome him back with open arms. It’s part of the fundie born again life cycle. The greater his “sin” the more pride they can have in their forgiveness. They love them prostitutes and such.
Do whatever you want. Beg for forgiveness. Go to heaven.
Sweet.
Posted by: beq | Nov 4 2006 23:16 utc | 6
fired
“We, the Overseer Board of New Life Church, have concluded our deliberations concerning the moral failings of Pastor Ted Haggard. Our investigation and Pastor Haggard’s public statements have proven without a doubt that he has committed sexually immoral conduct.
Posted by: annie | Nov 4 2006 23:16 utc | 7
Thanks, Beq. It really is astonishing the hypocrisy they are capable of. But then he belongs to the same bunch who cluster bombs for democracy, so go figure.
Still – “I slurped, but I didn’t swallow” is probably not going to play well with the faithful, who are going to require buckets of faith to get through this one with their voting preferences intact! 🙂
Posted by: SteinL | Nov 4 2006 23:44 utc | 9
majikthise crystallized the gorgeous core of the meme by boiling it all down to the headline:
“evangelist says he bought meth he didn’t use from a prostitute he didn’t fuck”.
— both billmon and gilliard should be humbled that they didnt think up this dense little diamond first — since it easily lies within their respective skillsets to have carved it.
Posted by: bianco | Nov 5 2006 5:15 utc | 10
Speaking of meth…(Yeah, Rocky Mountain sky high)
From One Lab to Another: Los Alamos Info Breach and Meth Trailer Story Develops (Project On Government Oversight Blog)
New information received by POGO suggests that the classified information breach exposed in a meth lab drug bust last week may be the most serious breach for Los Alamos National Laboratory since the Rosenbergs.
And there is no way to convey the importance or bold this enough:
U.S. Silence Impeding Swiss in Nuclear Case
Two years after the United States helped disrupt a notorious nuclear smuggling ring, the Bush administration has hobbled a Swiss effort to prosecute three of the alleged leaders by failing to share critical information, an American nuclear expert and Swiss law enforcement officials said yesterday.
Switzerland’s federal prosecutor made at least four separate appeals for U.S. help over the past year, asking for access to documents and other evidence linked to the nuclear black market run by the Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan. In that time, the Swiss have received no assistance, or even a reply, a spokesman for the prosecutor said.
I have taken the liberty of e-mailing Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Joby Warrick of the “Washington Post several times in reference to the above, he has yet to reply. There has been no follow up or out cry from anywhere with regards to this dire story of nuclear blackmarket smuggling. I wonder if Billmon (if he is reading) could intercede, and get some follow up and or backstory.
Also of note: Nuke Lab Privatization Moving Forward
Meth, yeah…
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Nov 5 2006 6:21 utc | 11
I call this karma or at least Cosmic humor: Haggard’s “Muscle Stud:” The Ads That Lured Bush’s Spiritual Advisor…
Posted by: Fran | Nov 5 2006 6:33 utc | 12
Yes, they are that stupid.
In a letter of apology read to the congregation of New Life Church Sunday morning, Ted Haggard confessed to sexual immorality and described himself as “a deceiver and a liar.” But in bearing his soul to an outside investigative board, Haggard claimed he is not gay and did not engage in homosexual conduct, the head of the panel said.
Describing a lifelong battle against temptations that were contrary to his teachings, Haggard wrote in his letter he had sought assistance “in a variety of ways,” and while he had stretches of “freedom,” nothing proved effective.
“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,” Haggard wrote.
Haggard was fired as senior pastor of the church on Saturday by an oversight board of pastors that concluded Haggard committed “sexually immoral conduct.” The board had investigated claims by a male prostitute who said publicly this week that Haggard paid him for sex and took methamphetamine over a three-year period.
But in a news conference after the service, the head of the oversight board, Pastor Larry Stockstill of Baton Rouge, La., told reporters that Haggard denied engaging in homosexual acts or being gay. Stockstill said Haggard’s admission that he received a massage from a gay man was enough grounds for the board to remove him.
So, Haggard was removed for getting a massage (and, no doubt, confessing, Carter-style, to lust in this heart? And people in this congregation will believe him because the cognitive dissonance of knowing they loved and trusted this man with their spiritual lives, with their children’s souls, will be too much for them to acknowledge.
Not to mention that none of them are willing to admit that Haggard is a homosexual, was born that way, and that it is perfectly all right for him to be a homosexual.
What is wrong is that he lied about it, that he made others’ lives miserable because of it (oh, AND he and his congregation drove about 10 ppl out of town by protesting in front of their homes because they were ‘pagans’ or some such bullshit.)
…and these are the people that decide elections? And witch hunts and hatred define middle class and military (or airforce) christianity?
Jesus wept.
Me, I’m just so sick of the talibornagain’s shit I wish they would be taxed to high heaven and use that money to actually provide services for the poor, sick, hungry…you know, what Jesus did.
I have no compassion for this man or his wife because they lived large off of hatred of gays and women and…most of all, yes, really.. TAXES. That’s this asshole’s godly mandate, according to his own words.
what a crock.
Posted by: fauxreal | Nov 5 2006 22:29 utc | 13
the christian god (i’m a big fan of the old norse temper-tantrumist thor myself) certainly seems to be getting all righteous on his putative adherents’ asses (sorry) all of a sudden
because it’s not only ted whose going down (sorry), it’s good old fun-lovin’, tax-evadin’ dr dino too, who, in case he didn’t have enuf cred already for being a creationist twat, was putting in some extra hours as a fucking nazi
Posted by: Dismal Science | Nov 5 2006 23:58 utc | 14
From your link, D.S. (and first I’d heard of this!)
Kent Hovind, founder of Creation Science Evangelism and Dinosaur Adventure Land in Pensacola, was found guilty of 58 counts, including failure to pay $845,000 in employee-related taxes. He faces a maximum of 288 years in prison.
Jo Hovind [his wife] was charged and convicted in 44 of the counts involving evading bank-reporting requirements. She faces up to 225 years in prison but was allowed to remain free pending the couple’s sentencing on Jan. 9.
…Kent Hovind, whose life’s mission is to debunk evolution, says he and his employees are workers of God and therefore exempt from paying taxes. He pays his employees in cash and does not withhold their taxes or pay his share as an employer.
…Jo Hovind’s attorney [] argued that his client was a simple piano teacher and grandmother who was not aware of bank-reporting regulations concerning large amounts of cash. Any cash transaction at a bank more than $10,000 triggers a currency-transaction report forwarded to the IRS. She was found guilty of using several methods to take out just enough money to avoid triggering the report.
LOL. sick.
But is Haggard part of a purge?
It was the second time in a week that a religious leader in Colorado Springs stepped down from the pulpit. The Rev. Benjamin Reynolds resigned as senior pastor of Emmanuel Missionary Baptist Church on Sunday, a few weeks after telling his congregation he is gay.
From The Nation, Oct. 12-
Immediately after the Mark Foley scandal broke, some anti-Republican gay-rights activists composed a memo containing the names of closeted gay Republican Congressional staffers and sent it to leading Christian-right advocacy groups. The founder and chairman of one of those groups, the Rev. Don Wildmon of the American Family Association, told me he has received that memo, which he referred to simply as “The List.”
…maybe there were others on that list, too?
Posted by: fauxreal | Nov 6 2006 1:15 utc | 15
Reading Colorado papers. The intolerance of evangelical leaders and their hypocrisies invite no sympathy. But Ensley has a point about the relative merits of different evangelical leaders.
Colorado Springs area actually has an organized, activist gay and lesbian movement. One gay activist told a local paper, “I have met with Haggard. I never regarded him as an enemy. Dobson (Focus on the Famiy) is an enemy.”
Col ballot includes 2 proposals on gay marriage this year. One amendment would define marriage as between a man annd a woman. The other would extend to gays all the legal rights of marriage in a civil union. As reported, Haggard spoke frequently in support on the first, but has been absolutely silent on the second. A curious omission from a leading evangelical.
Also per papers, he had increasingly addressed issues of poverty and environment.
beq is probably right about repentance and forgiveness, except that one of Haggard’s “friends” told the local reporter that Haggard would probably leave town “to protect his family from all the attention.”
Posted by: small coke | Nov 6 2006 1:30 utc | 16
…leave town to protect his family from all the attention?
does he think the ‘news’ was contained in Colorado Springs? Hasn’t he heard of TV? the internet? photography?
Posted by: crone | Nov 6 2006 3:28 utc | 17
Salon
LOL. You have GOT to see the Mapplethorp angel that is in Haggard’s church. (It’s on the first page of this article.)
Stockstill (below) sounds like a political operative to me, not a pastor.
Stockstill stood in a dark suit behind a Lucite podium and told the members of Colorado’s largest megachurch that God opted to reveal Haggard’s indiscretions now for a reason. And he implied that the reason had everything to do with Tuesday’s election. “We can be mad at God. We can say that’s not fair, the timing is terrible,” said Stockstill. “He chose this incredibly, um, important time.” God was telling the nation, Stockstill said, on the eve of an election favoring Democrats even in this blood-red congressional district, that it’s time for a “revival.”
Okay, so god is a bodybuilding male prostitute? Oh, wait, he’s just the “vessel” for god. I dunno, but he looks like a top to me.
and god, according to this ignorant putz, is on the side of the republican evangelicals? blasphemy.
the man is gay. he’s gay. he’s not a sinner with dark, terrible places, except for the lies he has lived. He’s simply gay. sick sick sick.
as I noted before, this really pisses me off because I knew a gay kid when I was a teenager and his parents would move from state to state to stop their son’s homosexual affairs. They were desperate for him to be straight.
If they loved him, why couldn’t they accept who he was?
Posted by: fauxreal | Nov 6 2006 3:59 utc | 18
If you go to the blog, Dispatches from the Culture Wars, he has been following the Hovind trial. Lots of interesting stuff there.
Posted by: aw | Nov 6 2006 5:39 utc | 19
Yunno, the Haggard story says a lot about sterotypes and cliches and where they came from.
Germans, for example, have a reputation for being efficient, puctual and methodical. But anybody who has dealt with Germans (mornin’, Bernhard!) knows that they can be the most disorganized, chaotic bunch of space cadets you have ever seen.
That is why their culture places such emphasis on orderliness and punctuality: without it, they would get noting done!
And although the Bible Belters have a reputation for being pious & straight-laced, those crackers can be some of the biggest whoremongers, drinkers, fighters, gamblers and general hellraisers you have ever known.
And that’s why they feel compelled to embrace such a strict moral doctrine that embraces all aspects of life and interaction: without it, they’d never sober up, clean up or get up from wallowing with Jezebels.
And remember, Arkansas, the very heart of the Bible Belt, is also the state that gave us Bill Clinton.
Posted by: ralphieboy | Nov 6 2006 6:58 utc | 20
But anybody who has dealt with Germans … knows that they can be the most disorganized, chaotic bunch of space cadets you have ever seen.
*Glances at spouse’s side of the desk*
LOL
Posted by: Hamburger | Nov 6 2006 10:57 utc | 21
i missed this bit, faux:
the “simple piano teacher and grandmother” defense – lol!
thanx for link, aw
Posted by: Dismal Science | Nov 7 2006 11:40 utc | 22