Evangelist: I Bought Meth From Gay Escort

The president of the National Association of Evangelicals, suspected of paying a gay man for sex, has admitted "some guilt," according to church official.

Rev. Ted Haggard has said he purchased methamphetamine from a gay escort after contacting him for a massage, but never used the drugs and threw them away, according to an interview he gave with KUSA-TV. He said he met the escort in a Denver hotel room.

"I bought it for myself but never used it," he said. "I was tempted, but I never used it."

Haggard, 50, said he never had sex with Mike Jones, a 49-year-old male prostitute who sparked the scandals when he told a radio station he had had a three-year sexual relationship with the minister.

Haggard said he did get a massage from Jones after being referred to him by a Denver hotel.

Haggard, an outspoken opponent of gay marriage, has given up his post while a church panel investigates the allegations. He resigned as president of the 30 million-member association Thursday, as well as his post as head of his 14,000-member New Life Church pending an investigation.

Jones admits he was motivated by politics — Haggard opposes a gay marriage amendment now on the ballot in Colorado, reports CBS News correspondent Byron Pitts.

There's also a separate measure would establish the legality of domestic partnerships providing same-sex couples with many of the rights of married couples.

The accusation could also affect several Republicans running for Congress in Colorado, reports CBS News correspondent Gloria Borger.

But in terms of the larger picture, one Republican political consultant told Borger, "On a scale of 1 to 10, of all the things we've got to worry about, this is a 1."

The acting senior pastor at New Life, Ross Parsley, told CBS affiliate KKTV-TV of Colorado Springs Haggard admitted that some of the accusations were true.

"I just know that there has been some admission of indiscretion, not admission to all of the material that has been discussed, but there is an admission of some guilt," Parsley told the station. Parsley added that the church remains "100 percent for him."

Parsley did not elaborate, but in an e-mail addressed to congregants, he wrote that the church's four-member board of overseers had since met with Haggard.

"It is important for you to know that he confessed to the overseers that some of the accusations against him are true," Parsley wrote. "He has willingly and humbly submitted to the authority of the board of overseers, and will remain on administrative leave during the course of the investigation," CBS station KCNC-TV in Denver reports.

In a statement Thursday night, Haggard said, "I am voluntarily stepping aside from leadership so that the overseer process can be allowed to proceed with integrity. I hope to be able to discuss this matter in more detail at a later date. In the interim, I will seek both spiritual advice and guidance."

Carolyn Haggard, a spokeswoman for the New Life Church and the pastor's niece, said a four-member church panel would investigate the allegations. The board has the authority to discipline Haggard, including removing him from ministry work.

Church members were stunned by the allegations.

"It's political, right before the elections," said Brian Boals, a New Life member for 17 years.

Church member E.J. Cox, 25, called the claims "ridiculous."

"People are always saying stuff about Pastor Ted," she said. "You just sort of blow it off. He's just like anyone else in the public eye."

Jones said he decided to go public because of the political fight over the amendments.

"I just want people to step back and take a look and say, 'Look, we're all sinners, we all have faults, but if two people want to get married, just let them, and let them have a happy life,"' Jones said, adding that he was not working for any political group.

Jones, who said he is gay, said he was also upset when he discovered Haggard and the New Life Church had publicly opposed same-sex marriage.

"It made me angry that here's someone preaching about gay marriage and going behind the scenes having gay sex," he said.

Jones claimed Haggard paid him to have sex nearly every month over three years. He said he advertised himself as an escort on the Internet and was contacted by a man who called himself Art, who snorted methamphetamine before their sexual encounters to heighten his experience.

Jones said he later saw the man on television identified as Haggard and that the two last had sex in August.

He said he has voice mail messages from Haggard, as well as an envelope he said Haggard used to mail him cash. He declined to make the voice mails available to the AP, but KUSA-TV reported what it said were excerpts late Thursday that referred to methamphetamine. Haggard later told the station that he left the voice mails.

"Hi Mike, this is Art," one call began, according to the station. "Hey, I was just calling to see if we could get any more. Either $100 or $200 supply."

A second message, left a few hours later, began: "Hi Mike, this is Art, I am here in Denver and sorry that I missed you. But as I said, if you want to go ahead and get the stuff, then that would be great. And I'll get it sometime next week or the week after or whenever."

Haggard was appointed president of the evangelicals association in March 2003. He has participated in conservative Christian leaders' conference calls with White House staffers, such as Karl Rove, and lobbied members of Congress last year on U.S. Supreme Court appointees after Sandra Day O'Connor announced her retirement.

After Massachusetts legalized gay marriage in 2004, Haggard and others began organizing state-by-state opposition. Last year, Haggard and officials from the nearby Christian ministry Focus on the Family announced plans to push Colorado's gay marriage ban for the 2006 ballot.

At the time, Haggard said that he believed marriage is a union between a man and woman rooted in centuries of tradition, and that research shows it is the best family unit for children.