…like, oh, say, hypocritical preacher-men:
The leader of the 30-million-member National Association of Evangelicals in the US has resigned after being accused of paying for sex with a man.
The Reverend Ted Haggard said he would also temporarily step aside as head of his 14,000-strong New Life Church while his colleagues investigated the claims.
Mr Haggard, who is known as a vocal opponent of same-sex marriages, denies the accusations.
The claims were made by a man during a radio show in Denver, Colorado.
In a statement to the New Life Church, Mr Haggard said he could “not continue to minister under the cloud created by the accusations”.
“I am voluntarily stepping aside from leadership so that the overseer process can be allowed to proceed with integrity,” he said.
In an interview with KUSA-TV, Mr Haggard said he “never had a gay relationship with anybody”.
“I’m steady with my wife, I’m faithful to my wife,” he said.
In the sense that he’s not carrying on an affair with another woman, he has a point there. And, in the sense that regular appointments to have sex-for-pay, gay or straight, do not exactly constitute a relationship, he may also have a point. But remember, kiddies, this very, very peculiar preacher-man has some very, very definite ideas on who gets into heaven and what they can expect to find there.
Meanwhile, back down to Earth, we get guys like this, making a living hell of it for women:
A Republican congressman accused of abusing his ex-mistress agreed to pay her about $500,000 in a settlement last year that contained a powerful incentive for her to keep quiet until after Election Day, a person familiar with the terms of the deal told The Associated Press.
Rep. Don Sherwood is locked in a tight re-election race against a Democratic opponent who has seized on the four-term congressman’s relationship with the woman. While Sherwood acknowledged the woman was his mistress, he denied abusing her and said that he had settled her $5.5 million lawsuit on confidential terms.
The settlement, reached in November 2005, called for Cynthia Ore to be paid in installments, according to a person who spoke on condition of anonymity because the deal is confidential. She has received less than half the money so far, and will not get the rest until after the Nov. 7 election, the person said Thursday.
A confidentiality clause requires Ore to forfeit some of the money if she talks publicly about the case, according to this person and two other people familiar with elements of the case.
It is common in settlements for payments to be made in installments and for the parties to be held to confidentiality.
Sherwood admitted no wrongdoing, a standard provision in such agreements, this person said.
Sherwood, a 65-year-old married father of three who is considered a family-values conservative, had one of the safest seats in Congress until Ore sued him in June 2005, alleging he physically abused her throughout their five-year affair.
Ah yes, I knew there was a reason this all looked so familiar. This is another of your “family values” hypocrites who deny it all, even in the face of so much evidence that yes, they are guilty as sin. And in this case, of paying mucho hush money to keep it from hurting a political career built around this particular brand of hypocrisy.
Oh Lord…sweet Jesus…I feel a song coming on:
From the NYT:
Christian Leader Admits to Buying Drugs
By JOHN HOLUSHA and NEELA BANERJEE
The Rev. Ted Haggard, the former president of the National Association of Evangelicals and one of the nation’s most influential Christian leaders, admitted today that he had purchased the illegal drug methamphetamine from a gay escort in Denver, but denied that he ever had sex with the man.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/03/us/04pastorcnd.html
Ooh.. wait, there’s more!
From the same article in the NYT:
Mr. Haggard said a Denver hotel referred him to Mr. Jones for the purpose of getting a massage. He said he met with Mr. Jones and bought the drug. “I was tempted, I bought it, but I did not use it,” he said today. […]
Mr. Haggard, 50, who is married and has five children, has consistently denied the sex accusation, saying in a television interview: “I am steady with my wife. I’m faithful to my wife.”
He also had said he had never met the man making the accusation.
So, he says he met Jones to buy the meth… but he says he’s never met Jones.
The funniest liars are the really, really stupid ones.
Oh Dave, it’s even worse. He never met him to get a massage, and buy meth he never used. He threw out HOW many hundred dollars’ worth of the stuff? But wait, he never met the man, so how could he get his hot little hands on it?
Man, it’s AMAZING what you can do with stuff you never bought!