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Not sure if any of you remember this, but a CO Springs pastor named Ted Haggard made national news around 2 years ago. He founded New Life Church which is humongous here. Unfortunately, though, he made the news a couple years ago because a male prostitute in Denver announced he had been having sexual relations with Haggard.
This is a man, mind you, who condemned homosexuality from the pulpit.
Anyway, Haggard is all over the news once again. After all that happened 2 years ago he resigned and moved to AZ for a little while, but has since moved back "home" to CO Springs. I guess HBO is about to air a documentary of his life the past 2 years since leaving New Life.
Well, turns out the male prostitute in Denver wasn't the only one. This past week another young man came forward with his story of how Haggard sexually abused him when he was at New Life a few years ago. Supposedly when Haggard was accused of the male prostitute stuff, this young man came to the church and spoke with people to tell them. The church offered him money for his counseling and schooling if he wouldn't talk publicly about it.
This young man decided to break his contract with New Life and come forward with his story when he heard of Haggard's documentary about to be aired. He wants people to know the truth.
Obviously this story saddens and angers me. People's reactions to Haggard here are mostly those of disgust. Even before these most recent happenings, after any mention of Haggard people would roll their eyes and vocalize how they wished he hadn't moved back to CO Springs.
But I have felt a lot of compassion for Haggard. I can't imagine the inner turmoil he must have been in and still now is under. I can't imagine actually preaching to thousands of people from the pulpit condemning something, then behind everyone's back participating in it.
I think my thought with him has always been, "What if Haggard had decided to admit to what he did first? What if the prostitute hadn't come forward, and instead Haggard decided to tell someone what was actually going on with him? How would the church have responded?"
If you wanted to read the actual news story, here's the link: http://www.krdo.com/Global/story.asp?S=9737380. There is even a video of the most recent young guy who came forward to tell his story. | 
