And yet another... gay evangelical

When will this end?  (Answer: when being seen as gay is no longer a social stigma and when civil rights become human rights, available to all).

And still another outspoken opponent of gay marriage and gay rights, this time a leader in the Evangelical Christian movement has stepped aside amid allegations (and apparently some confession of) gay sex. 

The president of the National Association of Evangelicals, an outspoken opponent of gay marriage, has given up his post while a church panel investigates allegations he paid a man for sex.

The Rev. Ted Haggard resigned as president of the 30 million-member association Thursday after being accused of paying the man for monthly trysts over the past three years.

Later in the AP article we learn that his accuser is a gay man, Mike Jones of Denver, who says he's been having sex with Rev. Haggard.

"It made me angry that here's someone preaching about gay marriage and going behind the scenes having gay sex," he said.

Jones claimed Haggard paid him to have sex nearly every month over three years. He said he advertised himself as an escort on the Internet and was contacted by a man who called himself Art, who snorted methamphetamine before their sexual encounters to heighten his experience.

Jones said he later saw the man on television identified as Haggard and that the two last had sex in August.

Apparently, Rev. Haggard has denied some of the allegations, but the pastor who replaced him has said that he has admitted to at least some of them.

The acting senior pastor at New Life, Ross Parsley, told KKTV-TV of Colorado Springs that Haggard admitted that some of the accusations were true.

"I just know that there has been some admission of indiscretion, not admission to all of the material that has been discussed but there is an admission of some guilt," Parsley told the station.

I feel sorry for Rev. Haggard.   I honestly do.  Here is a man who, married and with 5 children, has made a career out of condemning people like him -- people who have gay sex.  Now, he must live not only with the condemnation of his own church, family and community, but of his own mind.  I imagine that this man is wracked with guilt.  But, in that concern, I also hope that he sees that his chosen path to salvation -- demonizing his fellow man -- is fraught with the possibility of breaking one's own glass house.

It seems like the most vociferous opponents of gay rights -- human rights -- are eventually found to be the people trying to shout down their own inner selves.  Can there ever be inner peace for these poor souls and are we forever doomed to be the backs upon whom these people make their climb to power?