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On today’s show we’re talking to Mike Jones, the writer and escort who came forward several years ago with evidence of a gay sex affair with the Reverend Ted Haggard. One morning at the gym, […]
Fausto Fernós is the host of iTunes’ #1 LGBT talk show, the Feast of Fun podcast, which he produces and hosts with his partner, Marc Felion.
Born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Fausto Fernós created the Feast of Fools in 1998 as wacky artists variety show in Chicago, Illinois. Feast of Fun grew out of an audio blog to promote the live show into the world’s most downloaded talk show aimed for gay people.
When he’s not blogging, recording or sleeping, Fausto can be found at the gym or appreciating the beauty found in nature.
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Comments
The truth will set you free, but first will make you miserable.
I applaud Mike Jones and people in general who open up to hypocrisy – but I guess Ted Haggard has his own sliver of truth through this life.
I never thought to buy the book but will look into it now that I have a better sense of Mike’s side of the story.
Yet another wonderful show. It was very interesting to hear Mike’s story, so kudos to you guys for managing to get him on the show, and to Mike Jones for taking such a difficult decision, which apparently cost him a lot.
Ha ha that was so funny when he said he wished you had the book. Does he know what the point of an interview is? But still great job landing such a great person to interview! How do you guys do it? Loooooove it!
Great show today guys! I really thought it was wonderful to hear the story from his perspective, and I am going to buy his book very soon!
One day maybe you’ll get Ted on the show LOL — but probably not.
Props to Mike Jones and to Grant Haas for speaking out about Haggard. It’s sad that Haggard gets a forum in the press, and these guys get marginalized and have to suffer death threats. There are probably many more out there who had run-in’s with Haggard. Really thoughtful discussion. I’m cynical that churches like New Life will ever accept gay people.
SHOUT OUT FROM MONTRÉAL, QUÉBEC, CANADA!!!
I wish we had a Canadian equivilant of your show up here. Have you heard gay podcasts coming from here?? Nothing special, let me tell you.
Anyway, in answer to your question from todays show:
The province of British Columbia is one of the ten provinces and three territories that make up Canada. British Columbia is on the west coast of Canada.
The name for the province of British Columbia was chosen by Queen Victoria and proclaimed in 1858. Columbia refers to the Columbia River named by American Captain Robert Gray for his ship Columbia.
its a shame that Mike got so much negative feedback from the gay community…really a shame…but great show! i can’t stand hypocritical people who get away with the things they do so i think Mike was right in exposing Haggard. i hope Mike can eventually start a happy life again because the guy seems really depressed right now. 🙁
Jesus, this guy has no sense of humor. I feel bad for him that he’s over 40 has to use his body and mouth (snitching) to make cash. Mark and Fausto, you guys give a good interview and his tired, old story is still not exciting.
Hi,
Thanks for doing this interview. A lot time people think gays are idiots if they practice faith, but that’s usually based on lies fed to them by likes of Focus on the Family and others who encourage bias against gays. It takes a very brave person to expose the hypocrisy of those people and show that true faith does not discriminate.
I know this is totally unrelated, but to those people that say “Jesus said marriage is one man and one woman,” I’ve yet to find the verse that says that. In fact, I’ve yet to find anything in the New Testament that encourages marriage at all.
Great interview guys, as someone who had a run in with a ‘father feel me up’ as a kid, i can tell you in my eyes, this man is nothing but a hero.
Great show as usual, Marc & Fausto!! It was very interesting to hear Mike’s side of the story and glad he agreed to be interviewed. However, I do question the point of outing him despite Tedd’s obvious hypocrisy. There are so many gay men quite content with living their life in “the closet” while living a life otherwise (married or not) which is just as hypocritical as Tedd H. though not as public. Mike said 80% of his clients were married men, some of which are clergy too. Why not out them too if the reason was Tedd’s hypocrisy? I think we gay guys who may be more open and out about who we are should respect those who choose not to or just cannot display their gay pride. Mike said himself it wasn’t as if he was preaching hate. He was saying what his church expected him to say regarding homosexuality. In my opinion, there was no good reason to destroy a man, his work, and his family who is technically just like one of us inwardly. Some people just can’t live out and openly gay due to family, job, friends, safety concerns, etc. I just don’t understand ever outing someone who’s life would be ruined by it unless they were somehow destroying or blackmailing us personally. How was he really hurting Mike for such retaliation? We get enough of that from those who despise and fear us. I think Ted was playing with fire being such a public figure and playing around, so he really made his own “bed”. But I also don’t agree with folks treating Mike in the manner he described either. I think we can disagree without being hateful and violent. Seems I may be in the minority here, but I think outing Tedd was the wrong thing to do and apparently has the outward appearance to many even in the gay community of “fame and fortune” to Mike which he said never really transpired.
Troy
I disagree, Troy. While I agree that it is not our business to out people just for the sake of showing they are lying, I think the line is drawn at where such people are actively spreading hate.
You say that he was saying things that his church was expecting of him. Well, first of all, it’s not like he was forced to be a preacher in a very conservative church. If he still wanted to be a preacher, he could have done a number of things: he could have embraced gays in a more liberal church, he could have kept silent on gay issues, finally he could have been more restrained in his condemnation of homosexuality as a sin (e.g. not comparing gays to murderers).
Only because he was just following orders, as you are arguing, it does not exonerate him.
fuck that funky queen trying to read because we all haven’t bought her book.
More than anything, I applaud Marc’s and Fausto’s ability to LISTEN to their guests and to let them tell their story. And their responses to them are never judgey or patronising.
Whilst personally I am not at all invested in the whole Ted Haggard fiasco, I can sense from this interview that Mike felt comfortable enough to say what he had to say. And for a person with as many issues as he claims to have, these moments are often hard to come by as they tend to keep their guard up.
If FoF show wasn’t already so freaking hilarious, I would still listen for it’s frank and unbiased nature alone.
But remember, Marcin, Mike himself said on the show that Tedd was NOT spreading hate in what he said. So he preached that homosexuality is a sin. He wasn’t all up in our business about it personally. It might be one thing if Mike was a member of his church, but he wasn’t. There are thousands of pastors across America who preach the same thing every week. It’s what they believe, it’s their opinion even if some are being hypocrits on the side. Many DO spread hate which is very unfortunate (I’ve experienced it first hand). Since when is it our business to punish people by outing them who truly are just like us looking for that emotional/physical satisfaction that only a gay relationship can bring? To talk of “exoneration” makes it sound like he was deserving of some kind of punishment that just HAD to be carried out. I’m all for diversity and equal rights for gays, trust me, etc. but sometimes I think we are just as bad as those who can’t stand what we say as gays and try to silence us. Respect is a two-way street.
So if we don’t want to be slandered, vilified and demonized by hateful preachers, we should not strike back at them if they do so? This kind of reasoning is a typical equivocation fallacy, although I’d say it is more typical among gay-hating fundies than self-hating gays. By the same token, a person defending himself or herself against an unprovoked attack is just as bad as the attacker, because they both resort to violence.
As Mike said himself, the guy went beyond preaching that homosexuality is a sin – he actually compared gays to murderers, which goes beyond any ‘call of duty’ as it were. I’m frankly sick and tired of all self-hating homos claiming that if we just be nice to hate-filled fundies and treat them with respect and kindness, they will see the error of their ways and extend the same courtesy to us. Well, they won’t.
Sorry for a rather harsh tone of my previous comment, but I feel rather strongly about issues like this. I think the gay rights movement has “played it nice” for too long, perhaps because we are by nature less aggressive, or perhaps because there is a lot of internalized homophobia going on, which makes many gays feel, deep down, that perhaps the fundies are right, and gays are indeed somehow “broken” or inferior.
I agree with Marcin here, Troy you are crazy. If married men and/or clergy men want to have a secret gay life because they need that physical/emotional gay satisfaction, whatever. Those are there skeletons in their closets… Don’t expect me to sympathize with them, but I’m not for outing people. However if these same people are in a position of power and are speaking out about the gay community in any way it bothers me. It hurts those of us in the gay community who are living honest and open lives. I think Mike made a tough decision, but I think it was the right one.
Also I don’t think Tedd is just like me at all.
I’m sorry guys, but this was the first and only show I had to stop 5 minutes into the talk. I just couldn’t listen to the guy. The way he responded to you at the very beginning made me cringe, maybe it was meant to be funny or something, but I didn’t feel it.
On a slightly different note, does anyone else notice that all the closeted, self-hating, openly anti-gay/conservative cases seem to somehow populate the nastier end of gay lifestyle? I am not by any means judging Mike here, but all these cases seem to involve things like hookers and drugs, foot-tapping in public restrooms or drunk driving after a skit in a seedy gay club (like the Austrian neonazi politician, Jorg Heider, who killed himself last year), all laced with lies and marital betrayal.
It seems as if these people are so repulsed by the gay lifestyle so much because the lifestyle they lead is rather unsavory itself.
I had to take some time on this one. I feel that what he had done was wrong. I do not nor have I ever sold my sole for money, nor have I ever payed for cock, but one of my best friends use to escort, the money is great. To me being an escort is lend being a therapyst or a profection where a client is paying you for a service. Included in that service they do not have to tell you who they are and if you dokniw something about them, you as a profetional you keep quiet. Mr jones saught a way of making even more money. Many clients wount ever dream of contacting him for employment in fear that he would out them. Mr none crossed the line and has lost a lot of money insted of getting the church to pay to keep him quite. Goes to show you geed well slap you in the face. I wish mr Jones a better life and to move on with his life. Not sure if I got this right , but. “Don’t shut in the hand that feeds you”
Troy, I’ve never been for outing others because I feel it’s an invasion of someone’s privacy. Is that different from calling someone out? Ask yourself that. Is it any different when a straight guy walks buy and one of us wants to screw him so we say, “He’s is definitely gay?” I guess that could be slander, right?
Notwithstanding, Marcin brings a very good point. The kind of evil spread by this particular church in their gay-hating spiel, is exactly was fuels incidents like the death of Matthew Shephard. Rather than preaching what the Bible says (Love others like you love yourself, and no this isn’t a reference to masturbation), they chose to do the opposite. 100 years ago, the bible was used to justify slavery. Then it was used to keep women as second class citizens. Then it was used to keep segration. Now it’s being used to keep gays from rights to which we are entitled as human beings.
I know Mike had the fact the works as an escort working against him (no pun intended), but it was a great message to send. That we are no longer going to be available to be used by them for their own carnal pleasures while they speak against us and act as though we are less than they. He sent a great message that we aren’t going to stay quiet when we see them preaching against what some of them do “in the dark”.
Last, I understand that Mr. Haggard may not have been one of the preachers spewing vitriolic hate against gays, but he was part of an organization that does. We don’t know that he did anything to stop it. You know the saying, “If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.” He also could have used his own homosexuality to encourage other gays to take up faith. Perhaps that would have been more responsible.
Great second interview guys. Between this, Signorile, and Pelosi’s film my inner gossip queen is not only completely titilated but very sated. Re: Pelosi’s film, I enjoyed it well enough but it really felt like a morsel or an afterthought of a few clips. Perhaps she intended it to be a postcard or a snapshot but it really didn’t answer any questions. I found myself feeling very sorry for Haggard who seems to be a victim of his own self imposed distortion. Also I found elements of the film, as Mike pointed out the wolf cut away, very mocking.
Great show you guys!!! It’s very sad to hear that Mike received so much negative feedback after he came out and spoke about Ted Haggard. I know there is a “code” by which we gays live by that tells us that we should not out other people, but this was justified. Ted Haggard was spreading so many vile thoughts about homosexuality into the minds of many Americans while living a gay life. If there is one thing in life I can’t stand, it’s hypocrisy. People that are hypocrites are the worst kind and I feel that Ted got what he deserved. I did feel sorry for the wife until I saw an interview on Dateline (I think that was the show) last week. The host asked her why she stayed with him and she said because she loved him (okay, I can give her that), and because of her religion (LOL). Once I heard those words coming out of her mouth, I thought to myself bit$%, you deserve each other. Once again, great show and I will probably be buying Mike’s book soon. Keep up the excellent work.
Thanks to you and to Mike Jones for doing the interview.
As someone who knew Ted Haggard as a child, I have taken a great interest in Haggard ever since he became head of the National Association of Evangelicals. But as a gay man myself, the Haggard story became even more interesting to me when Jones outed him.
I totally support Mike Jones’ actions, outing Haggard. I think what Mike did was absolutely the correct thing to do. It has pained me to see the lack of support Mike got from the glbt community. Ted, the church, and the “religious right” establishment all had publicists, media advisors, spindoctors, lawyers, etc, etc. Mike was out there totally on his own.
I have heard Mike Jones interviewed before, this one was different in tone from any others, specifically (as I noticed from the beginning) that Mike seemed more relaxed — maybe partly from your interviewing style. But maybe also because, as Mike said during the interview, he has come to a much more peaceful place over the past few days (mainly because Ted apologized to him and to the gay community). I was very glad to hear that.
I hope that Ted wedges further open the tiny crack in his closet door and becomes even more honest with himself and with the world (he’s got a long way to go). But most of all I hope Mike can now spend some time “taking care of Mike”; he deserves that, and I further hope that the gay community will become more supportive of him (verbally and financially).
I wanted to add my support for Mike in my own insignificant way (by commenting here).
re: outing. i’ll stop supporting this type of outing when gay christian teenagers stop attempting suicide. until then we need more people like Mike.
ps…if there’s a movie made i wonder if Bill Paxton is available to play Mike?!