Hypocritical Haggard: Still Haunted by the Truth?

Now that the dust has settled on a surpringly conciliatory and inclusive invocation last Tuesday by evangelical preacher Rick Warren, more dust is being stirred up by a fallen evangelical preacher. Remember Ted Haggard? He was the the former President of the National Association of Evangelicals (an umbrella group representing more than 45,000 churches with 30 million members) who also backed Amendment 43 to ban gay marriage in Colorado and was so sweetly exposed by his gay male prostitute in 2006 ? What I remember about that story is that the male prostitute, Michael Jones, thought it was so hypocritical for Haggard to speak out against gay rights while engaging in repeated acts of sex with him. Hypocritical indeed.

But it's getting better now... Yet another young man is coming forward to speak out against Haggard to expose him for being involved sexually with him. The Denver Post reported January 25th that this man, a former church volunteer, had what their church called "inappropriate, consensual sexual relationship"with Haggard for a long time. This man is now taking this news outside the 10,000-member New Life Church in Colorado Springs to a Colorado Springs TV station. He originally came forward in 2006 after the Jones expose', but he and the church reached a quiet settlement in 2007.

Now he's "going public" with it, according to Brady Boyd, Haggard's successor, because Haggard is now peddling his "story" in a new documentary by HBO about his "time in exile." "The Trials of Ted Haggard" airs this Thursday, January 29th as the a documentary by Alexandra Pelosi (House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's daughter). Ted was also in Pelosi's earlier documentary, "Friends of God..." For this documentary, Ted's story is on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" Wednesday and on Thursday on Larry King Live.

"I think what caused this young man to be a bit aggravated was Ted being seen as a victim, when he himself had experienced a great deal of hurt," Boyd said. It seems Ted just keeps getting chased by the Truth... that pesky, inconvenient Truth... Or, is Ted behind this, to stir up a new controversy from 2006 before his "therapy sessions" to get straight, to help promote the documentary? How does this former lover even know about the nature of how Ted portrays events in this documentary?

I've seen the video on the the HBO site and it seems part of the documentary is a "poor me" story, showing Ted and his family moving from hotel to hotel as he tries to make a living in sales.
Has Ted really been "de-gayed" during his "time in exile," or he still really gay and perpetuating his lies to himself, his family and the country in this documentary? And does he profit from the film?

I will leave you with this quote from the Denver Post to ponder: "In an AP interview...Haggard described his sexuality as complex and something that can't be put into stereotypical boxes." Complex indeed. Sounds like an out of control spiral of lies to me...