Ted Haggard, the disgraced former president of the National Association of Evangelicals who was ousted after admitting to buying drugs and allegedly had a relationship with a male escort, is back in the headlines.
This time, however, the pastor is trading spouses with Hollywood actor Gary Busey on "Celebrity Wife Swap."
Just how much Haggard will address the scandal during the show remains to be seen, but the evangelical leader said he sought out the TV appearance as "an opportunity...to bring people up to date on how [my family and I] were doing." As he told CNN: "I went through a scandal five years ago, and most marital problems aren’t nearly as serious as that one was and we survived it. So many people are fixated on the scandal as though it is the only thing in [our lives], and actually, that was not the only thing."
Interestingly, things got a bit heated during a promotional appearance, when the hosts of "Good Day LA" decided to press Haggard on the issue of same-sex equality. "I believe we need to have equality for people under our civil government," Haggard said. "Right now we have inequality in America for heterosexual, monogamous people in contrast to same-sex attracted people, and that needs to be worked out by our government and we need to press that."
Haggard's episode of the popular reality series airs tonight on ABC.