Mark Morford: Ted Haggard, The Root of All Evil ("car-salesmany bloated Christian shtick")

[Human Torch]

Ted Haggard, The Root of All Evil



So now we know: Ted Haggard, evangelical overlord and leader of upwards of 30 million happy homophobes and nervous Bush supporters, a man who says he calls Dubya once a week to, presumably, talk about God and gays and sin and cattle and sex and milkshakes and who knows what the hell else, we now know Pastor Ted most definitely did not probably well OK maybe I mean obviously we all know he did but he's denying it anyway even though it couldn't be more obvious, Ted did not have lots and lots of gay sex with a big handsome burly gay prostitute for three years, and oh yes also got massages and snorted lots of meth and by the way he had quite a deliciously good time of it, too. This is what absolutely did not happen, OK? Even though you know it did. Shhh.

Ah, Pastor Ted. He is a piece of work. He is a bit loud and crass and a little disorienting and very odd looking and just blindingly car-salesmany in his beautifully bloated Christian shtick. And oh yes, he is totally not secretly, wildly gay.

You want to see Haggard in action? You're in luck: For here is the recent, excellent BBC documentary, "The Root of All Evil," by noted evolutionary biologist/atheist Richard Dawkins, author of the NYT bestseller "The God Delusion." The film is Dawkins' examination of the horrors and intellectual/spiritual/physical violence wrought upon the planet's humans in God's name. And it's playing right now at the Rafael Film Center in San Rafael, and at the Roxie in San Francisco. Dawkins interviews Haggard, and, well, it's pretty amazing.

Can't make the trek to the theaters? You're in luck again: just click on over to that glorious repository of all things pagan and godless, YouTube. There's Pastor Ted, in Part I, in his Colorado lair, leading his frightening New Life Church in all sorts of happy warm numbing groupthink.

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