Colorado & Denver News

Associated Press Writer Dan Elliott contributed to this report from Denver.
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP/CBS4) ― Leaders of the National Association of Evangelicals planned to meet by telephone Friday, hours after the groups president resigned amid allegations he paid a man for sex.

The Rev. Ted Haggard resigned as head of the 30 million-member association Thursday and also gave up leadership of his New Life Church pending the investigation into allegations he had monthly trysts with a gay prostitute over the past three years.

The executive committee of the association's board scheduled a conference call Friday and planned to release a statement afterward, the association said. Haggard had been president since 2003.

Haggard's accuser failed a polygraph test early Friday morning about the truth of his accusations.

The test was given to Michael Jones, 49 of Denver, who made the allegations on the Peter Boyles Show on radio station KHOW Thursday morning.

The test administrator, John Kresnik, said Jones' results showed "deceptions."

Kresnik added that he questioned the accuracy of the test because of the stress on Jones and his inability to eat or sleep in the last day.

Kresnik suggested that Jones take the test again after getting some rest.

Haggard, a married father of five, denied the allegations, but the acting pastor of his church later said that Haggard had acknowledged some of the accusations were true.

"I just know that there has been some admission of indiscretion, not admission to all of the material that has been discussed, but there is an admission of some guilt," Ross Parsley told CBS4 late Thursday.

Parlsey did not elaborate, but in an e-mail addressed to congregants, he wrote that the church's four-member board of overseers had since met with Haggard.

"It is important for you to know that he confessed to the overseers that some of the accusations against him are true. He has willingly and humbly submitted to the authority of the board of overseers, and will remain on administrative leave during the course of the investigation," the e-mail stated.

Haggard denied the allegations in an interview with other media outlets late Wednesday.

The allegations surfaced as voters in Colorado and seven other states get ready to decide Tuesday on amendments banning gay marriage. Besides the proposed ban on the Colorado ballot, a separate measure would establish the legality of domestic partnerships providing same-sex couples with many of the rights of married couples.

Members of Haggard's 14,000-member megachurch were stunned.

"It's political, right before the elections," said Brian Boals, a New Life member for 17 years.

Church member E.J. Cox, 25, called the claims "ridiculous."

"People are always saying stuff about Pastor Ted," she said. "You just sort of blow it off. He's just like anyone else in the public eye."

Jones said he decided to go public because of the political fight over the amendments.

"I just want people to step back and take a look and say, 'Look, we're all sinners, we all have faults, but if two people want to get married, just let them, and let them have a happy life,"' said Jones, who added that he isn't working for any political group.

Jones, who said he is gay, said he was also upset when he discovered Haggard and the New Life Church had publicly opposed same-sex marriage.

"It made me angry that here's someone preaching about gay marriage and going behind the scenes having gay sex," he said.

Jones claimed Haggard paid him to have sex nearly every month over three years. He said he advertised himself as an escort on the Internet and was contacted by a man who called himself Art, who snorted methamphetamine before their sexual encounters to heighten his experience.

Jones said he later saw the man on television identified as Haggard and that the two last had sex in August.

He said he has voice mail messages from Haggard, as well as an envelope he said Haggard used to mail him cash. He declined to make the voice mails available to the AP, but they were broadcast on local television.

"Hi Mike, this is Art," one call began, according to the report. "Hey, I was just calling to see if we could get any more. Either $100 or $200 supply."

A second message, left a few hours later, began: "Hi Mike, this is Art, I am here in Denver and sorry that I missed you. But as I said, if you want to go ahead and get the stuff, then that would be great. And I'll get it sometime next week or the week after or whenever."

Haggard, 50, was appointed president of the evangelicals association in March 2003. He has participated in conservative Christian leaders' conference calls with White House staffers and lobbied members of Congress last year on U.S. Supreme Court appointees after Sandra Day O'Connor announced her retirement.

After Massachusetts legalized gay marriage in 2004, Haggard and others began organizing state-by-state opposition. Last year, Haggard and officials from the nearby Christian ministry Focus on the Family announced plans to push Colorado's gay marriage ban for the 2006 ballot.

At the time, Haggard said that he believed marriage is a union between a man and woman rooted in centuries of tradition, and that research shows it's the best family unit for children.

(© 2006 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)