Because I'm…Fred Garvin, Male Prostitute
I am too childish foolish for this world. When Mark Foley tried the old molested-by-a-priest trick, I figured that had to be straight-up bullshit. Not a day later, it turned out that, while they may not have been unwanted encounters, there really were some hot interludes between the boy-wonder Foley and Fr. Anthony Mercieca (now living, in a detail nobody could make up, "on the Mediterranean island of Gozo off Malta").
Yesterday I hear that Rev. Ted Haggard, the gay-marriage-hatin' (now former) head of the National Association of Evangelicals, was involved with a male prostitute, and it sounded like the whole thing was so obviously a setup that it wasn't even worth a second thought. Today it turns out Haggard really was doing the nasty… Excuse me, he was just buying some drugs from the gay escort in question, but there was no sexual (mis)conduct—which I guess is the Evangelical equivalent of Kevin Spacey innocently lending his cell phone to a Hyde Park hustler.
And I mean, I'm always willing to believe the worst of religious people. But these just seemed too convenient to be true. No more! Twice bitten, thrice shy, I say. From this day forward, I believe everything I hear.
Special Gaydar Update: Commenter crapactionjackson sends along a great clip of Richard Dawkins getting harangued by Haggard. I had never seen Haggard in action before; the man is obviously queer as a French horn. Here I was thinking he was one of God's tough guys, equally at home cutting down trees and sharing his enormous penis with his young son. To reiterate, I should have been, like Haggard's flock, ready to believe.
