Reaction to Haggard scandal focuses on hypocrisy

Only days before the Nov. 7 midterm elections, Reverend Ted Haggard, president of the National Association of Evangelicals, resigned amid allegations of paying a male prostitute for sex and drugs.

The high-profile evangelical Christian leader became head of the 30 million-member organization in March of 2003. Later that year, he was invited to the Oval Office when President Bush signed the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban.

Christian conservatives are often cited as the Republican Party's political base and were courted heavily by Bush and other Republicans. Many political analysts suggested that issues like the war in Iraq and the Mark Foley scandal led many conservative evangelicals to simply stay away from the polls.

NEIU senior Julie Hackman, who describes herself as a person of faith, welcomes the Democrats' wins in Congress.

Like many voters across the country, as well as here at Northeastern, she is concerned about the blurring separation between church and state under the Bush administration. She thinks the Ted Haggard scandal made little or no difference in the recent elections.

Haggard had significant clout in Washington, having participated in conference calls with White House staffers and lobbied Congress about Supreme Court nominees. His anti-gay rhetoric cemented his standing among the influential evangelical Christian political base.

"I am a deceiver and a liar. There's a part of my life that is so repulsive and dark that I have been warring against it for all of my adult life," wrote Haggard in a statement read before a packed congregation of his 14,000 member New Life Church he founded in the 1980s.

Some progressive voices on campus take issue with the Republicans' incorporation of their political and social views in the name of God.

As a member of the Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance and supporter of gay rights, Hackman said, "I am so sick of these Republicans doing things and making decisions in the name of God."

She is surprised so many Christian conservatives are shocked that Haggard would be caught doing things which many consider to be "non-Christian."