From James Bone in New York

LURID allegations of sex trysts and drug use with a gay prostitute have forced one of America’s leading Christian conservatives to resign as head of a 30 million-strong evangelical movement.

The Rev Ted Haggard, 50, a married father of five, stepped down as president of the National Association of Evangelicals after a self-described male escort went on the radio to accuse him of paying for gay sex.

With his chiselled features and wide smile, Mr Haggard was a poster boy for the evangelical movement and social conservative causes.

The blue jeans-wearing “Pastor Ted”, who keeps an electronic Bible in his Palm Pilot, is one of a new breed of evangelical Christians with close White House ties who have played a key political role in electing the Republican Party to power.

A national leader of the campaign to outlaw same-sex marriage, Mr Haggard reportedly speaks to President Bush or his advisers every week.

He is the latest in a long tradition of Christian leaders — such as Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart — who have been exposed for sexual indiscretions in this land of preachers.

Mike Jones, 49, a former male escort who now works as a personal trainer, went public on a Colorado radio show with claims that Mr Haggard had regularly paid him $200 a time for sex sessions over the past three years.

Mr Jones, once a competitive bodybuilder, said that he met Mr Haggard when he responded to an advertisement he had listed on a gay escort website called rentboy.com.

He said that Mr Haggard would send him cash in envelopes marked with the name “Art” and also asked him to get “crystal meth”, an addictive methamphetamine popular with gay men for its aphrodisiac qualities.

Mr Jones said that he only learnt who “Art” really was when he saw Mr Haggard interviewed on a documentary about the Anti-Christ when the film of The Da Vinci Code film was released this year. ()

He said that he decided to speak out because Mr Haggard was leading the campaign for a state constitutional amendment in Tuesday’s vote that would bar gay marriage in Colorado. “I felt it was my responsibility to my fellow brothers and sisters, that I had to take a stand, and I cannot sit back anymore and hear [what] to me is an anti-gay message.” he said.

Mr Haggard initially denied the allegations. He told local TV: “I’ve never had a gay relationship with anybody, and I’m steady with my wife. I’m faithful to my wife.” But Ross Parsley, the interim pastor at his church in Colorado Springs, said that Mr Haggard had admitted to some but not all the claims. “There has been some admission of indiscretion . . . there is an admission of some guilt,” Mr Parsley said.

After Mr Jones released taped telephone messages yesterday, Mr Haggard admitted that he had gone to Mr Jones for “a massage” and bought crystal meth — an illicit stimulant — from him, but insisted the two did not have sex. “I did call him. I called him to buy some meth, but I threw it away. I was buying it for me, but I never used it,” he told local TV.

Mr Haggard was appointed president of the evangelicals association in March 2003.

The pastor has participated in conservative Christian leaders’ conference calls with White House staffers and lobbied members of Congress last year on appointees to the US Supreme Court after Sandra Day O’Connor announced her retirement.

PULPIT SHAME

Martin Gorman
In 1986 was accused by rival evangelist Jimmy Lee Swaggart of “immoral dalliances”. He unsucessfully sued Swaggart for spreading false rumours

Jim Bakker
In 1987 was exposed by Jimmy Lee Swaggart for committing adultery with Jessica Hahn, a minister and secretary. Sacked from his multi-million dollar job presenting Praise the Lord.

Jimmy Lee Swaggart
In 1988 officials from his church were given photographs showing him taking a prostitute to a Louisiana motel. She told a New Orleans TV show that they had not had sex, although he liked to watch her undress.

Oral Roberts
Operator of a TV ministry in Tulsa, who broadcast that God would “call Oral Roberts home” unless believers donated $4.5 million. He survived, but was heavily criticised for his approach to fundraising.

Jerry Falwell
Subject of a merciless parody in an advertisement in Hustler magazine that implied that he had lost his virginity to his mother in an outhouse while they were “drunk off our God-fearing asses on Campari”. Falwell sued, unsuccessfully.

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