CourageMan: Loathesomeness (i.e., sin) all around

Quelle coïncidence! All around.

Just a few days before Colorado votes on a gay "marriage" amendment, a homosexual prostitute says one of his clients was Ted Haggard, head of the National Association of Evangelicals and founder of one of the nation's largest mega-churches. The prostitute said:

It made me angry that here's someone preaching about gay marriage and going behind the scenes having gay sex.

Heaven forfend that prostitutes should deal with people "going behind the scenes," as if a prostitute ever deals with someone not seeking to fulfill some sexual or other need on the QT. Nor was Haggard all that anti-gay for a Christian pastor, as Get Religion documents. Sorry, but I refuse to listen to lectures about sexual morality from someone who fucks for money.

The timing of this latest "Out A Politically Incorrect Homo" is so patent that I can't imagine that it'll have any effect on the referendum. Christians won't be turned off (if anything the opposite) and the crass timing of the whole spectacle (like the Bush DUI "October Surprise" in 2000) will be seen through by anyone else.

That said, Haggard's actions have been pathetic -- a Clinton-worthy drip-drip-dripping, trimming his story to minimally conform to what he knows can be proven. The backtracking detailed in a nutshell by Denver TV station KUSA.

The first clip says he doesn't know the prostitute's name (and yes, some prostitutes go by other names). Which we now know is a lie, from tapes and his own admissions. We also got this:

I did not have a homosexual relationship with a man in Denver. I am steady with my wife. I’m faithful to my wife.

And the minute I read that denial, I knew there was something rotten in Denmark. The wording was so technically precise -- "I did not have a homosexual relationship with a man in Denver" -- as to invite Clintonian parsing to see if it can be telling the truth while making-believe a lie. Obviously, on multiple counts. To mention only the one being borne out (I can think of about three others without breaking any brain sweat): Purchasing a prostitute for an hour once a month is not by any stretch of the imagination a "relationship."

Then there was the fact that he immediately resigned. Which, give the devil his due, a gay activist and champion "outer" noted -- "I don’t know a lot of people who step down from those positions if there’s not something behind that smoking gun."

Then we got this admission from the church to unspecified indiscretions (at the bottom of the article):

There has been some admission of indiscretion, not an admission to all of the material that has been discussed, but there is an admission of some guilt.

Then Haggard said he bought drugs from the guy but never used them:

I was buying it for me, but I never used it. I never kept it very long because it was wrong. I was tempted. I bought it. But I never used it.

Coincidentally, this admission came after the prostitute played tapes for a Denver TV station of the man he says was Haggard. And the TV station had a voice authenticator analyse it, saying it was authentic. Here's a sample ... the very vaguenesses and unclear referents make it clear that there's a familiarity here (the listener would know how to fill in the gaps):

Hi Mike, this is Art, I am here in Denver and sorry that I missed you. But as I said, if you want to go ahead and get the stuff, then that would be great. And I'll get it sometime next week or the week after or whenever.

Coincidence that *now* he admits this? And when real evidence beyond "he said, he said" comes out that you bought crystal meth (the gay party-drug of choice), it's just all-too-convenient to believe when you change your story to "buying, but not using."

This is Classic Clinton -- "I smoked but didn't inhale." Admitting to one sexual encounter with Gennifer Flowers (not realizing that to have sex with someone merely once is in fact the rudest, ugliest thing of all to do). Or admitting an "inappropriate relationship" with Monica Lewinsky only once the DNA tests on the blue dress came back. I mean ... buy meth out of curiosity and then not use it? Please. More sail-trimming. Don't piss on my leg and tell me it's raining. Just don't.

The same interview had this claim, from KUSA:

According to Haggard, he met with Jones in a Denver hotel room after receiving a referral from the hotel in which he was staying.
When asked how he knew Jones would sell him meth, Haggard said he had told him about it.
"I went there for a massage," Haggard said.
When asked which hotel gave him the referral, Haggard said: "I've stayed at a lot of hotels in Denver because I write in Denver."

Oh yeah. I go to masseurs all the time, as referred to me by a hotel. And every masseur I go to, I happen to ask him how to score some crystal meth. And that onetime purchase of crystal-meth I made was such a specifically memorable event that I remember throwing it away, but also such a banally forgettable event that I don't remember what hotel it was for a reporter to confirm whether they give referrals to masseurs with ads like this one (warning: kinda explicit).

Puh-frickin-leeze. I can't even drive by some of the places where I've committed sins of this sort without being reminded of them. This guy's a smoothie trying to weasel his way out. Nothing more.

It's the massage thing that tore it for me. If you want or need a legitimate massage, there are professional and legitimate masseurs and masseuses. And there's reputable gyms and saunas and spas, where you can do business openly and freely. A hotel might refer you to them. But you don't hire a prostitute from whom you also get the gay party-drug of choice. Indeed, many gay prostitutes (like this one) advertise themselves as offering "massages," with the term either standing alone or sometimes with winking terms like "massage and other services."

New Life Church finally decided it had had enough after two days of this and fired him outright.

Still, this won't change (and shouldn't change) anybody's mind about homosexual "marriage," as the prostitute acknowledged he hoped to do. People are smarter than that. And Christians too. As one New Life member put it: