NEWSPEAK Blog

OMG! Watch this right now!

The moral: Don't be a dumbass.

HaggardWatch!

I hate to interrupt Greg and Drew's O-hilarity, but here's a heads up that we'll be starting a new web and print feature called HaggardWatch, in honor of the former New Lifer's return to COS—and we need your help!

If you've seen Haggard, shoot us an email with the location and a brief synopsis of your sighting. For instance:

"Saw Haggard at Lau'au's. The gay conversion therapy must've worked because he was really enjoying that taco."

We'll be launching the feature soon. Send all sightings to newspeakmag AT gmail DOT com. Prizes and accolades given if you happen to spot the Archbishop of Manterbury near gay cruise spots, which we'll identify on the map once we get it up. Get sightin'!

Hallelujah!

Our pal Non-Prophet alerted us yesterday that Ted Haggard has moved back to Colorado Springs—just another sign of the elasticity of our little town, never letting go of those meth-addict college dropouts.

NP thinks Haggard is sure to found another church, but I'm not so sure I'm sold on that—and I think it'll be a rough lesson for Haggard if he tries. Say what you will about evangelicals' capacity for forgiveness, but I have difficulty believing that Haggard will have the same luck in attracting a flock.

But if Haggard truly is back, we thank him for doing so, because it will give us a whole lotta stuff to write about.

More like Super DoucheDay

From Brady Boyd up at La Iglesia de Nueva Vida:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Ted Haggard's leadership of New Life Church for many years was extraordinary and the depth of spiritual maturity that is found today in the church is in large part attributed to his leadership as the founding senior pastor.

In January 2007, Ted Haggard voluntarily agreed to enter a process of spiritual restoration. He has selected Phoenix First Assembly and Pastor Tommy Barnett as his local church fellowship and is maintaining an accountability relationship there. He has recently requested to end his official relationship with the New Life Church Restoration Team and this has been accepted by them.

New Life Church recognizes the process of restoring Ted Haggard is incomplete and maintains its original stance that he should not return to vocational ministry. However, we wish him and his family only success in the future.

Because spiritual restoration is a necessarily confidential process, the church does not anticipate that it, or its Overseers or Restorers will make further comment about it.

We've heard a rumor that Ted is now selling insurance in Phoenix, which doesn't exactly seem like "vocational ministry." Good luck, Ted. Just remember that some day you'll be remembered as having been a pivotal figure in the gay rights movement. Some day you might even realize that THAT was God's plan for you.

How Queer: Haggard Sighting!

According to our spies, Ted Haggard was spotted two nights ago at Shuga's! Yes, Shuga's, the super-gay-friendly, super-gay hipster hangout where we certainly love to eat and drink! He was with a woman presumed to be his wife, a young man and a young woman presumed to be his children. He ordered the Croque Monsieur and they all had hot chocolates.

I wonder if they all rode their scooters? According to other spies of ours, when he was still bilking the New Life dupes out of millions of dollars every month, he bought five shiny scooters from Sportique.

Maybe they figured they wouldn't see any New Lifers at Shuga's. Or maybe they've moved back. I've been hearing rumors tha Haggard's thinking about starting up another church here in the Springs!

Big fuckin' suprise!

Yawn.

Surprise! Registered Sex Offender Is Ted's Money Man

Wow, leave it to SLOG in Seattle to uncover the fact that the guy running Ted's defunct charity is also a registered sex offender in Hawaii. Paul Huberty lists his address in Monument, but apparently failed to register as a sex offender here in CO. The full dirt over at SLOG.

Jesus: Imaginary Friend for Morons

Non-Prophet is reporting that Queerty is reporting that Colorado Confidential is reporting that KRDO reported that Ted Haggard is now asking for donations to help pay for his and his wife's college education!!!!!! I'll let you follow the links to Church of Moron!

Get a job, Ted, you fucking wanker!

UPDATE!: SLOG is reporting that Haggard's request for funds to be sent through the non-profit to benefit him directly may be illegal!

Mike Jones to Star in Play in Boulder

From this morning's Denver Post

The play is called "Porridge," and Jones, 50, will be playing a role inspired by - himself. Boulder playwright Brian Bauman, a 29-year-old gay man, sees Jones as a man who took a risk, uncovered a hypocrite, and was then abandoned by the gay community.

"I find Mike Jones to be heroic," Bauman said. "And that is why I cast him in this play."

Jones' theater background? "I don't have any," he said with a laugh.

No matter to Bauman. He calls it a casting coup. "I'm not concerned with ideas of 'traditional' acting expertise," he said. "I have complete faith in Mike's performing abilities."
"Porridge" deals with issues of truth and hypocrisy in power relationships. More specifically, Bauman said, "it's the story of three Gulf War Marines who go AWOL after being exposed to friendly-fire nerve gas in an all-base orgy."

Bauman calls it a scathing (and "decimatingly funny") investigation of American cultural imperialism in the Middle East, the quagmire of the Persian Gulf War and the shadows cast by "Don't Ask, Don't Tell."
It will be performed five times at the Boulder International Fringe Festival, which opens Thursday.

Thanks for le tip, Mike!

With All Due Respect, Miss Bryant

This letter was in the Gazette this morning:

HEALING TIME Bookstores made right move by not hosting Jones

I would like to thank the bookstores in Colorado Springs that are not holding a book signing for Mike Jones’ new book, and I would like to ask the owner of Poor Richards, Richard Skorman, to decline as well (“City turns its back on tell-all book tour,” The Gazette, June 3). We at New Life Church are finally receiving some healing in our church and families, and this would have just taken us back to the beginning and opened many wounds that have finally closed.

While I understand that Jones is not doing well financially, couldn’t he have just gotten a job instead of capitalizing on the fall and failure of a man? Surely, in a city the size of Denver and with the diversity of people owning businesses there, there is someone who would be willing to hire him.

His words say it all: he’s doing it for the money. In my experience, when people do things for the money, they will say and do anything, whether it is true or not. I hope the book is filed under “fiction.”

Monica Bryant
Colorado Springs

I just got done reading Mike Jones' hideously written tell-all. The sex scenes are boring, unrevealing and unsurprising. There are, as other revieweres have noted, some touching moments about Mike Jones' family and upbringing, and I definitely walked away from it feeling a lot more sorry for Ted, who really does seem tragic in the end and, duh, gay.

That said, New Life Church embraced Jones as a truthteller and, as much as its parishioners like Monica Bryant may want to let the wounds heal, the damage that Ted and homophobic evangelicals like him and Dobson et. al. have done to queers around the world is immeasurable and I can assure you those wounds won't be healing anytime soon. That you all had to suffer a small taste of what it's like seemed just, though the lessons of it seem lost on you entirely. So maybe you need it rubbed in your face a couple more times after all?

As much as I don't like Jones' book or what comes across at times as an almost pathological vanity (no more than Ted's, though, I'm afraid), I still admire his courage and I'm still glad he did what he did and this community trying to censor him by denying him an opportunity to make an appearance on a legit book tour just goes to show how deep the denial still runs. Yeah, he did it for the money and he should get paid for it because he has a legitimate and important story to tell about the deeply insidious ramfications of our culture's homophobia. And he did it because it was the right thing to do even if it is poorly written (blame his ghost writer!). Let him come here and read from his crappy book. I hope Poor Richard's does invite him, and I'll certainly be there if he does.