Guy Who Helped Pastor Ted Blow His Career Pens A Tell All

I Had to Say Something: The Art of Ted Haggard's Fall
"For almost three years, a man named "Art" came to see Mike Jones, an escort, at least once a month. With time, the relationship deepened, including sexual experimentation as well as sincere conversation. Like many of Jones' closeted clients in the clergy or the military, Art revealed his vulnerabilities as he struggled with his true desire for sexual contact and emotional involvement with a man.
One day, Jones recognized Art preaching hate on a religious cable channel. He soon discovered that Art was actually the Reverend Ted Haggard, who, as president of the National Association of Evangelicals, influenced the daily lives of thirty million followers, advocating virulently against gay rights and same-sex unions, with direct access to White House policymakers."

2006 was a bad year for religeous hypocrites. Not too many people know that Pastor Ted wasn't the only screeching wacko that resigned in disgrace because of personal peccadillos. There must be something inherent in xtian fundamentalism that attracts men who are trying to flee the scourge of inner demons.
Just a few weeks after PT resigned in disgrace from New Life Church a youth leadership minister named Christopher Beard of New Life was kicked out because of 'sexual misconduct' with an anonymous person of undetermined gender. Another Colorado flock fleecer, a Rev. Paul Barnes, resigned last December after admitting to his homosexuality. Yet another one in December named Pastor Paul Williams out of Memphis was "forced to take a leave while a church committee investigates charges that Williams sexually molested a family member 17 years ago."

What makes Haggard's situation and Jones' book extremely important is not only the fact that a deeply conflicted man had the ears of the country's policymakers but that his crashing fall from grace helped swing a national election. My take on last November was that the Rovian fix was in and vote counts in crucial precincts were flipped at a certain percentage. But fixing an election like that takes time; the machines were tweaked perhaps months in advance to what they felt was a believable, winning amount of votes. Crusader against child abuse Congressman Foley and especially Pastor Ted dominated the news just before people went to the polls, creating enough of a backlash against hypocritical republican types that it was even more of an avalanch for democrats, putting many of them over the top.

So Jones' tale of Haggard coming to terms with who he really was and the subsequent firestorm that erupted might be interesting reading. From an interview at Nerve:
"According to the book, with Ted, it seemed like there was a progression - at first, he was really shy and reticent, but the more often he saw you, the kinkier he got.
Especially when he started doing meth."