I was going to take a pass on this one - it’s just too easy, right? - but that was when it was just innuendo and allegation and possibly even a political ploy in the run-up to Tuesday’s elections. (In point of fact, regardless of what the pastor did or did not do, it IS a political ploy - just because the Evangelicals are the ones in the hot seat doesn’t make it any less political. That being said, however, the movie Jesus Camp is in theatres now, and Ted Haggard’s smiling mug was in the trailer at one point and is probably in the film, too - and perhaps awareness of the movie made the accuser step forward at this time. Regardless, the timing is sketchy at best, and just plain exploitative at worst.)
The issue, of course, is the flap over Pastor Ted Haggard, former President of the National Assocation of Evangelicals, who has been accused by a former male prostitute (the temptation to drop into an Eddie Griffin falsetto and refer to the chap as a “man-ho” is almost too great to pass up) of paying for sex and of buying meth from him.
CNN reported earlier today on its web site that Haggard denied the allegations, but that the acting senior church official, who stepped into Haggard’s vacated leadership position at New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Colorado, stated that there had been “some admission of indiscretion.”
Okay, fine. He said, she said. Or, I suppose in this case: he said, he said. Is it shady, up to this point? Sure it is. He resigned. Had there been no merit whatsoever to any of the accuser’s claims, surely Haggard would have remained at his post and denied, as loudly as possible - have you noticed that Evangelicals tend to do everything as loudly as they possibly can? - everything that this lunatic former prostitute was saying about him. But instead, he, you know, resigned.
Now...CNN is reporting here that Haggard paid the former male prostitute “for a massage,” and bought meth from him but threw it away instead of using it.
So now I revoke my pass-taking, because this has gone past the point of being an election-cycle blip on the radar and gone straight (so to speak) toward the ridiculous. Let’s take a quick second to break down exactly what Haggard has admitted.
He paid a former male prostitute “for a massage.” Doesn’t say how much he paid, nor what the massage entailed, but neither matter. The black and white of it is this: he gave money to another person (it only matters here that it was a man because Haggard is an Evangelical and Evangelicals hate gays) to have that person put his hands on Haggard’s body. And that, friends and neighbors, is a spectacularly effective parsing of English. No one can prove that what he said was a lie, except for the former male prostitute; and that brings it back to he said, he said.
In a world where all the jokes are told when they need to be told, by the people who should be telling them, then Bill Clinton would be the first one in the room to hold up his microphone and ask Ted Haggard to define, specifically, just what he means by the word “massage.” That, of course, will not happen; but I would laugh loud and long if it did.
Then comes the meth he threw away, and I think we’ll just go right back to Bill Clinton on this one - the same guy who admitted to smoking pot but not inhaling. See how the parsing works? He admits the part he can’t hide, and then makes up something vague about the part that no one can prove. Haggard does the same thing by admitting that he bought the meth, but It occurs to me, however, to question why he would admit to buying it at all; and that begs the further question: what is the incontrovertible proof of this purchase that must exist in the world if Haggard felt compelled to admit that he made the purchase?
The same article reports that the former male prostitute took a polygraph test that, upon analysis, “did show deception.” The article also indicates that the former male prostitute, Mike Jones, was exhausted at the time he took the test. Doesn’t sound like he lied, but he also might not quite be telling the truth - or the whole truth. Regardless, why does Jones’ revelation have Haggard doing the duck-and-cover bit? This is the former leader of the country’s largest assimilation of Evangelicals - and he is now caught up in accusations of hypocrisy, lying (er, bearing false witness, I suppose), and criminal activity (for buying the meth).
Sam Harris, a prayer-hater who wrote a religion-bashing book called The End Of Faith and a follow-up to that book called Letter To A Christian Nation, which is essentially the salient points of the first book distilled down into a few dozen pages that are actually readabale and almost enjoyable, should be having a field day with this mess. What a goofy world we live in.
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