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Resigned preacher has close White House ties By Scripps Howard
WASHINGTON — As president of the National Association of Evangelicals, the Rev. Ted Haggard has advised the White House on issues ranging from judicial appointments to steel tariffs, but he also sought to widen the agenda of Christian evangelicals into areas of the Bush administration — and many of his Christian brethren — would rather avoid.
Haggard resigned Thursday as president of the association, which says it represents some 30 million evangelical church members, and stepped down as pastor of the 14,000-member New Life church in Colorado Springs after a Denver man named Mike Jones claimed that he had many drug-fueled trysts with Haggard.
On Friday, Haggard said that he received a massage from Jones after being referred to him by a Denver hotel and that he bought meth for himself from the man.
But Haggard said he never had sex with Jones. And as for the drugs, “I was tempted, but I never used it,” the 50-year-old Haggard told reporters from his vehicle while leaving his home with his wife and three of his five children.
Jones, 49, denied selling meth to Haggard. “Never,” he told MSNBC. Haggard “met someone else that I had hooked him up with to buy it.”
Jones also scoffed at the idea that a hotel would have sent Haggard to him.
“No concierge in Denver would have referred me,” he said. He said he had advertised himself as an escort only in gay publications or on gay Web sites.
Jones did not immediately return calls from The Associated Press on Friday.
Although he had been active in lobbying for conservative Christian causes before, Haggard’s profile rose after he became head of the NAE early in 2003. He made frequent visits to the White House and was included in a select group of religious leaders briefed on the administration’s agenda during a weekly teleconference with White House staff, to “feel the evangelical pulse,” he’s said.
“We have direct access (to the White House,)” Haggard told a Wall Street Journal reporter shortly before the last presidential election, adding he could take a concern to the president through staff and get a response within 24 hours.
He keeps two framed photos of himself and President Bush on the wall outside his church office but also has spoken admiringly in the past of the faith of former Democratic presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter.
Haggard was on the ‘A’ list of evangelical Christians invited to the Bush White House for the signing of a bill banning late-term abortions or to be called in advance of any announcement for a chat about pending Supreme Court nominees, yet he criticized the White House for emphasizing the evangelical faith of failed nominee Harriet Miers, rather than her judicial philosophy.
New Life Church sits just across a highway from the United States Air Force Academy, and Haggard has been at the forefront of evangelicals determined to stop Pentagon regulations that might prevent military chaplains from evangelizing.
At the same time, Haggard has angered some religious conservatives for urging Christians to protect Muslims in the days following 9/11 and more recently for urging missionary outreach to Muslims, but not to win converts or force Christianity on them.
Last summer, he joined an eclectic group of 27 religious leaders who ruffled the White House with a statement published in newspaper advertisements urging the government to “abolish torture now — without exception” in dealings with prisoners, including those suspected of terrorist activity.
In fact, Haggard has argued almost as frequently for freedom from government intervention as he has freedom of religion. He was one of the few religious conservatives to endorse a 2003 Supreme Court decision striking down Texas’ anti-sodomy law on privacy grounds.
In a 2004 interview with the Rocky Mountain News, Haggard told the story of meeting with President Bush and a half-dozen other evangelists and using the occasion to argue against the extension of tariffs on steel. “Your responsibility is the good of the people and free trade is the way we get cheaper steel,” he recounted telling the president during the session. The taxes were dropped soon after the meeting.
Haggard’s recent efforts promoted, through the NAE, a “broad biblical agenda” that included improving health care, ending racism and addressing global warming, which he recently declared should be an evangelical priority.
Like the White House, however, Haggard seeks to find environmental solutions through a free-market approach rather than through tight government controls or taxes on emissions of greenhouse gases.
Although the association’s board approved some broad goals for social activism along those lines in a vision statement earlier this year, it has drawn criticism from many Christian conservatives for going beyond the “values” issues that have traditionally been the political focus of the community.
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You want to see Haggard in action? You're in luck: For here is the recent, excellent BBC documentary, "The Root of All Evil," by noted evolutionary biologist/atheist Richard Dawkins, author of the NYT bestseller "The God Delusion." The film is Dawkins' examination of the horrors and intellectual/spiritual/physical violence wrought upon the planet's humans in God's name. And it's pretty amazing.
There's Pastor Ted, in Part I, in his Colorado lair, leading his frightening New Life Church in all sorts of happy warm numbing groupthink.
The interview with Haggard starts right around the 19th minute, and runs for about ten minutes. Be sure to enjoy the kicker at the end, when Ted suddenly decides to throw Dawkins and his film crew off his church property, because Dawkins dared to suggest that creationism is just a little, you know, idiotic.
Makes you wonder what Ted might've done if Dawkins offered him some meth and a "backrub," no?
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he's got some serious issues if he hates himself that much that he thinks he must preach against his OWN sexual orientation... how pathetic, that he's not only bringing himself down but all the other self-hating gay people who see this. What a rotten person, he should be ashamed of himself
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Yep it ain;t no surprise to me bash the gays and the victims of the drug world the users. Yell it to your congragation send them to jail and hell.
Then turn around and and do it all yourself
No wonder he is close to President Bush
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Even so... there's a big difference between gays and speed addicts, a huge difference. In fact there not even close in comparison as people and should not be confused with eachother what so ever.
Gays are just different people that march to the beat of a different drum and many are good folks, I do not judge them or group them with meth addicts. Coming from a straight dude, once in awhile we need to stand up for those that can't and speak for those that can't..
Meth addicts, well some people that were born normal, got lost when they began to use. But as far as the trafficers and dealers, they are true bonified SCUM, and that ain't my humble opinion, thats a fact.
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Meth costs just as much as cocaine in terms of street prices. It has taken over the cocoa market, its raw materials come from Canada and Mexico and are mfg in the states. Coca comes from down in So. America. Most Coke users are now todays meth addicts.. another fact..
-------------------- Bill Gates, Donald Trump and James Dean, Willie Nelson, John Lennon and Neil McCoy
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I said I "thought", but I know it does. I've came across many discarded garbage bags of the crap they make it out of working on roadjobs I've been on. And hear about meth labs catching fire and exploadig all over the place. I had a friend that lost all her babys clothes and stuff because some dumba$$ was cooking that crap and expolded in the storage bin beside the one she was renting.
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Yep.. nasty stuff, comes from all kinds of places. People actually make it in bath tubs also. Rather than actually taking a bath.. amazing! As the old saying goes....
"this too shall pass" just not soon enough. Great generation on the rise, hopefully the youngins stay healthy and away from the Rat poison. Don't see'em in my neighborhood anyway...
-------------------- Bill Gates, Donald Trump and James Dean, Willie Nelson, John Lennon and Neil McCoy
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This a classic example of the Bush presidency. The man we have in the white house has used every form of deception and cunning to take away rights of people , breeding hate against groups of people to divide people.
Starting wars for the profit and control of world commodities for the rich.
Making mercenaries out of our military.
Icreaseing the size of our government for repressive reasons
ruining our education system and cities and setting health care back 20 years
And I can't believe people still think he is a great president.
He does not even back our troops with good personel All branches of the military are calling for Rummey to be dumped must be a first in our history.
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Ice (high grade meth) is a common drug used by homosexuals. Ice is used as it tremendously enhances the sexual experience and creates a high level of euphoria, inhibition, and pro longed sexual releases. Ice also greatly increases the stamina and the staying power.
The pastor bought ice, not just the low grade meth. The man knew what he was doing. His body and his body language shows signs of ice use. Add to the fact that the man is a homosexual and the everything adds up.
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Here is a clip from his letter to his church:
"The fact is I am guilty of sexual immorality. And I take responsibility for the entire problem. I am a deceiver and a liar. There's a part of my life that is so repulsive and dark that I have been warring against it for all of my adult life," he said.
This sounds like a man who was certainly born gay but probably grew up in the church and has been fighting against it ever since he started having sexual urges.
Where oh where is Andrew and the other man who say it is a choice? Why are they hiding from this thread?
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Research by US psychologist Prof. Adams of the University of Georgia suggests that 80 percent of men who are homophobic have secret homosexual feelings.
In Prof. Adams's test, homophobic men who said they were exclusively heterosexual were shown gay sex videos. Four out of five became sexually aroused by the homoerotic imagery, as recorded by a penile circumference measuring device (a plethysmograph).
Prof. Adams's research was published in the prestigious US Journal of Abnormal Psychology in 1996, with the backing of the American Psychological Association.
Prof. Adams says his research shows that most homophobes "demonstrate significant sexual arousal to homosexual erotic stimuli", suggesting that homophobia is a form of "latent homosexuality where persons are either unaware of or deny their homosexual urges".
These findings support the theories that homophobia (fear and hatred of gayness and support for antigay discrimination) is often indicative of repressed, self-loathing homosexual feelings; and that many homophobes subconsciously use anti-gay attitudes as a smokescreen to disguise their own homosexuality.
-------------------- "Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
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Maybe Bill will play the Sax, a nice blues tune. I met one of the Sax players that used to play with Bill when he was in office. They sure could Jam...
Republicans don't have another Ronnie in the making. Future looks bleak and they cant carry a tune anyway..lol
Time for a change.
PS: I'm an
(R)
-------------------- Bill Gates, Donald Trump and James Dean, Willie Nelson, John Lennon and Neil McCoy
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