In the 2000s, Colorado Springs-based evangelical mega pastor Ted Haggard catapulted his career by opposing marriage equality, invoking the name of Christ as his authority. Pastor Haggard even became an advisor on so-called “moral” issues to President George W. Bush. In November 2006, news broke that, behind closed doors, Pastor Haggard had paid male prostitutes for sex and consumed crystal meth with them. In public, Pastor Haggard campaigned against the rights of LGBT people. In private, he had homosexual sex.
In 2010, Mike Lee ran a successful campaign to unseat Sen. Robert Bennett, a virtuous statesman and public servant. Lee catapulted his career identifying himself as a so-called “constitutional conservative,” invoking, with religious zeal, the Constitution as his authority. After Joe Biden was elected president, Lee publicly denied he was involved in any effort to undermine the results of the election. In private, text messages now reveal Lee was defecating on the very Constitution he invoked as his public standard and sword.
With apologies to Ted Haggard, Mike Lee is to the Constitution what Ted Haggard was to Christianity. I say with apologies to Ted Haggard, because, unlike Lee, Haggard had the integrity to eventually publicly acknowledge his rank hypocrisy. Lee never will. Lee has no shame and no guiding principles. The only way to stop him is to elect Evan McMullin.
Thomas R. Grover, Las Vegas, 6th generation native Utahn
