Disgraced evangelical leader Ted Haggard supports same-sex 'marriage'
COLORADO SPRINGS, October 22, 2012, (LifeSiteNews.com) – Ted Haggard, the megachurch leader whose dalliances with a male prostitute toppled him from his church in 2006, has now endorsed same-sex “marriage.”
“I don’t think the state has any role dictating or mandating” morality, he said. “Though we would oppose that in our churches, [same-sex weddings] should be allowed by the state.”
Ted Haggard
Haggard, who founded the 14,000-member New Life Church in Colorado Springs, served as president of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) until he admitted that he paid male prostitute Mike Jones for sex, used crystal meth, and viewed pornography featuring men and women in 2006.
Haggard made his statement last Monday in a debate with Benjamin Hecht, an Orthodox Jewish rabbi who opposes redefining marriage. Hecht said the commandments of God also give “insights into the social order” and identify the nuclear family as “the building block of society.”
Last year, Haggard told GQ magazine that he would self-identify as “bisexual” but intends to remain faithful to his wife. “I’m 54, with children, with a belief system, and I can have enforced boundaries in my life,” he said. “I can be who I am and exclusively have sex with my wife and be perfectly satisfied.”
In that same interview he said he opposed gay “marriage,” but supported domestic partner benefits.
In 2010, he started St. James Church, which he says welcomes homosexuals. Haggard said in launching the church in 2010 that he will not perform same-sex “marriages,” because “God’s ideal plan for a marriage is the union of a man and a woman.”
“God’s ideal that all of us have our weight under control,” he added.
