Disgraced pastor is freed of gay urges, wife saysTed Haggard’s wife says counseling has cured him of his compulsionsBy Mike Celizic
It has been more than three years since charismatic pastor Ted Haggard left his megachurch in disgrace, mired in a scandal involving drug use and a male prostitute. But the woman who stood by him says now that the experience has brought them closer together than ever.
“Our relationship is better than it’s ever been. Going over this mountain together has given me the marriage that I’ve always longed for,” Gayle Haggard told TODAY’s Meredith Vieira Wednesday in New York.
Gayle Haggard had come to discuss her new book, “Why I Stayed: The Choices I Made in My Darkest Hour.” Although the process was painful, the answer, she writes, was simple: She loved her husband.
In 2006, the Haggards were an evangelical version of the American Dream. They had met as students at Oral Roberts University, fallen in love and gotten married. As they were starting their family of five children, they also started a church that first met in their Colorado Springs home.
With Gayle directing the women’s ministries and Ted driving the growth of the congregation, the New Life Church grew to a 14,000-member congregation, and Ted became the president of the National Association of Evangelicals. His counsel was sought by President George W. Bush.
And then, in November of that year, it all came crashing down. A homosexual prostitute, Mike Jones, angry at Haggard’s opposition to same-sex marriage, alleged that Haggard had been a client for several years and had also purchased methamphetamines from him.
Gayle told Vieira that when she first heard the accusations, she was in “total disbelief. I felt as though my marriage was at a healthy place. Everything in my life felt healthy at that time. I felt as though our family was doing well. Ted was clinging to me and felt closer to me than ever before. Our church felt healthy. That was probably the happiest time in my life up until that point . . .
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