TED HAGGARD'S POOR WIFE

IT really always is the wife who suffers. Last year it was New York governor Eliot Spitzer's wife, Silda, who had to stand at his side at press conference after press conference, pale and haggard-looking, listening to him confess to visiting prostitutes all over Washington. Now it is Gayle Haggard who has to go on Larry King and every single TV network to stand by her man, Ted, the founder of the New Life Church in Colorado Springs, who has had to admit buying crystal meth from a male prostitute and to soliciting men for sex. Here he is on Larry King again, saying he still has "sexual thoughts" about other men and admitting to "sexual immorality" with a male prostitute. But, believe it or not, he is just not homosexual, and Gayle has to suffer the indignity of describing her great sex life with Ted.

His first therapist, Ted says, told him, "You are a heterosexual with homosexual attachments." His current counsellor calls it "homosexual complications". "I don't think these boxes work for me," he self-analyses. "I have some thoughts and processes in my life that just don't fit into boxes. And today I am 100% satisfied with my relationship with my wife."

Ted says he's "over the hump". He's not thought of men, really, for, what, almost a year now? And the Scriptures have really come alive for him during this period of his crisis. (In Ted's church, those Scriptures will, of course, condemn him to eternal hell for practising homosexuality.)

Can't Gayle just give Ted up as a bad job? She tells Larry King, "I really do love this man. He's more than the complications and flaws that he's committed. To restore honour to our children, the best thing I could do is to restore honour to their father. Jesus teaches us to forgive 70 times 7." So what does this mean? Ted can solicit another 68 times 7 men before she gives up on him?

Of course, there is the wonderful irony and schadenfreude of seeing this nationwide spiritual hero, the leader of the 30-million-strong National Association of Evangelicals, who has spoken out against homosexuality (but whose church has a comparatively tolerant attitude to homosexuality and supports civil unions for gays and lesbians), go down for something he has so consistently called "wrong" in his sermons.

Here's Ted bashing homosexuality.