I’d be bisexual if I was 21, Ted Haggard says

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Former megachurch pastor Ted Haggard says he would be bisexual if he was 21 and not a Christian.

Speaking to GQ magazine, the disgraced preacher insisted he was happily married to wife Gayle and said he still believes that the Bible says homosexuality “is not God’s best plan for people”.

He resigned as the pastor of Colorado’s New Life Church in 2006, when it was revealed that he had slept with a male prostitute and taken drugs, despite being a vocal gay marriage opponent.

Haggard now runs a far smaller church, St James Church, in Colorado Springs. Last summer, he urged gays and lesbians to join his services and invited them to discuss the Scriptures with him.

He told GQ: “I think that probably, if I were 21 in this society, I would identify myself as a bisexual.

“I’m 54, with children, with a belief system, and I can have enforced boundaries in my life.

“Just like you’re a heterosexual but you don’t have sex with every woman that you’re attracted to, so I can be who I am and exclusively have sex with my wife and be perfectly satisfied.

Speaking about escort Mike Jones, he said: “We never had sex sex. I bought drugs and a massage from him, and he masturbated me at the end of it. That’s it.”

He also confessed to using methamphetamine, something he denied in the past.

“Sometimes I’d throw it away,” he said. “Other times, I’d go some place and masturbate and use it. But it was for masturbation.

“And that’s one of the reasons why I haven’t been real clear. I don’t want to stand up publicly and say, ‘Hey, I’m a masturbation guy!'”

Haggard had controversial ‘gay cure’ therapy after the scandal. He has also said that his behaviour was caused by being molested as a child.

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