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Loading ...Haggard wife says she knew about his ’struggles’
01.28.2009 10:41am EST
(Chicago, Illinois) Former evangelical pastor Ted Haggard’s wife says she knew about his struggles with same-sex attraction for years and felt he was “winning the battle” before a scandal involving a male prostitute triggered his downfall in late 2006.
Gayle Haggard makes the remarks in an appearance with her husband on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” to air Wednesday. She said she was shocked when Haggard first told her the truth about the allegations against him.“The first words out of my mouth were, ‘Who are you?’” she said, according to a publicity release issued Tuesday by Harpo Productions.
However, Gayle Haggard also said her husband told her early in their 30-year marriage that he “struggled with some thoughts.”
“I felt it was the thing that could destroy Ted if he gave in to it,” she said. “So I prayed for him and I felt as though he was winning the battle.”
Haggard, 52, resigned as president of the National Association of Evangelicals and New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Colo., after the male prostitute went public. Haggard confessed to “sexual immorality.”
The scandal widened in recent days with disclosures that Haggard also admitted to an “inappropriate” relationship with a church volunteer, Grant Haas, who was 22 at the time.
Haas told KRDO in Colorado Springs that Haggard performed a sex act in front of him and sent him illicit text messages. He informed New Life Church shortly after the scandal broke, and the two parties reached a settlement in 2007 that included a confidentiality agreement. Haas went public as Haggard is heavily promoting an HBO documentary about his time in exile.
“…winning the battle” ? his wife says … sounds like a line Sigourney Weaver stated in “Prayers for Bobby”. Poor brainwashed Evengelicals, so desperately wanting to feel superior to other people, failing miserably and dragging down as many people as they can in the process.
Whatever happened to the “choice” in lifestyle choice, Teddy? The choice actually resides in confession. He chooses to confess to “sexual immorality” when he should rather admit to gayness or bisexuality. Are we readers the only ones that know this?
go on You Tube to-”Hyprocritical Preacher” broadcast by CBC Canada (2006); this says it all about Rev. Ted!
Well, there goes my sympathy for Gayle Haggard. Since she was in on the whole “pray the gay away” thing she is complicit in the mess the Haggard’s now find themselves in (and are trying to cash in on). But seriously, if a leading evangelical megachurch minister was unable to convince God to “cure” him of his homosexuality in 30 years of asking then why should anyone else believe that homosexuality can be magically “cured”?
re hyprocritical preacher; if it doesn’t come up under “hyprocritical preacher”, try Ted Haggard, (hyprocritical preacher) You Tube.
OK… so I dont have much sympathy for Mrs Haggard, because the whole “winning the battle” thing is hard to take any other way from someone so entrenched in the right… but, if she new about his attraction to other men (basicaly his bisexuality) but he reassured her that he loved her and was committed to her and their monogamous relationship, why should she have looked at this any differently than him being attracted to other women? Every marriage in America (gay and straight) is based on a commitment, this doesnt mean that attraction to other people goes away, it simply means that the two people have agreed to commit to each other (even that isnt ironclad, see open relationships) but the point is, people never lose the “thorn in the side” of being attracted to other people, whether it be because they like brunettes and their partner is a blonde, or they like brown eyes and their partner has blue, or they like women too… and their partner is a male. It all comes down to commitment to work through the issues and be honest with your partner.
What I got from this story is that he told his wife hes gay, and “struggled” with it by having affairs with boys.
He was well aware of these “thoughts”, and so was she, so I think its hilarious when she acts all suprised . Denial is one of the most powerful forces in America today, sad but true.
This reminds me a lot of the televangelist scandals of the 80’s. Haggard had a private life that didn’t match his public persona. The homosexuality aspect is almost immaterial when one considers the simple fact that he was up on stage preaching against the sins of others while committing many of those same sins himself. Yet he casts himself as a victim. Unlike those sinful gays who choose that sinful lifestyle and demand blasphemous things like same-sex marriages, Haggard himself had the decency to try and resist his vile urges. But alas for poor Pastor Ted, the Devil found him in moments of weakness and led him to sin. Yet he is faithful and brave, and intends to soldier on, fighting these urges and committing himself to a righteous life. Good Christians should praise him for his commitment to doing what is right! And thankfully the daughter of evil arch-liberal Nancy Pelosi is willing to help show the world what a martyr Ted Haggard is.
The only thing here that can be “cured” is ignorance. But since Evangelicals get off on being willfully ignorant, I see no cure for them in sight.
don’t feel bad for these 2 weirdos – feel sorry for thier children…being “Brainwashed” at a young age, with Fucked up parents to boot!
Ted Haggard has two very serious choices to make about his life if he is to stop the insane cycle of destruction not only of his own life, but the lives of his family and loved ones. He can fully accept his natural born sexual orientation; or, he can continue on a charade of a life, hopeless, void of happiness, peace, full of lies, deceipt, unhappiness, pain, self-loathing. No amount of praying by himself or his wife and family will change his sexual orientation. He desparately needs to face it head on, accept it and move on with his life even if it means ending his marriage so that his wife can start a new life of her own.
One day, we hope Rev. Ted will find a genuine Christian who will care less about misguided dogma than he does about Ted Haggard and will tell him, “There’s no need to struggle about anything. Just be honest about your sexual orientation.”
WHY is it such a “scandal” that this guy had a CONSENSUAL relationship with a 22 year old man??? WHY was the 22 year old guy entitled to compensation??
Ted will alway have this “struggle” and will likely one day give in and find himself in bed with another man.
That why men like him need a nationwide option to both marry other men and to adopt children. So that options other than either deceiving straight women or living alone are there plus the opportunity to raise a kid and be a dad if that is a desired possibility.
Men living together and loving life together as out and open couples needs to be an option without stigma throughout this land.
Gayle needs to let Ted go and needs to encourage to be the openly gay man he needs to be and needs to encourage him to find a man who will love him and help him be the gay man he was meant to be.
oh, boo-hoo to Haggard & wife. If Ted is not the poster child for “sexual orientation as biological” and not a choice, then I don’t know who is? Both of them need to accept the fact that he is what he is. But, going on Oprah and more publicity (no such thing is bad publicity for Teddy) to promote his documentary is what drives these two to be in the public eye again.