ONE of America’s leading evangelical pastors ended a week of lies yesterday when he finally admitted that he had gay sex.

“I am guilty of sexual immorality,” said Ted Haggard, a confession with potential political ramifications far beyond his church in the conservative bastion of Colorado Springs.

“I am a deceiver and a liar. There is a part of my life that is so repulsive and dark that I’ve been warring against it all of my adult life.”

Republicans are worried that a string of scandals, most notably the Mark Foley pageboy affair that emerged in September, will depress turnout among conservatives, particularly evangelicals.

Randall Balmer, a professor of religion at Columbia University, said: “Add to [the Foley affair] a growing dissatisfaction on the part of many evangelicals with the Bush Administration and the leadership of the religious right, and I think this is a big scandal.”

Mr Haggard, 50, married with five children, frequently participated in conference calls with the White House.

Before the scandal broke the Republican candidate for the House of Representatives in Colorado Springs was already locked in an unexpectedly close race with the Democrats.

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