By Mike Jones
Daily Beast
July 17, 2010
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-07-17/why-priests-hire-male-prostitutes-by-mike-jones/
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| Jones Priests Waterbury Police Department |
A pastor is accused of stealing $1 million from his church to hire male escorts. Mike Jones, the escort who outed Ted Haggard, on what really happens when priests visit gay prostitutes.
As a former gay male escort and the man who exposed the hypocrisy of Pastor Ted Haggard, I’m probably less stunned than most about the sensational case of the allegedly corrupt priest, Father Kevin J. Gray.
Last week, Father Gray was brought up on charges that he embezzled $1.3 million from the Sacred Heart Church in Waterbury, Connecticut. He blew the money on ritzy hotels, designer clothes, and the luxury item that caught everyone’s attention: male prostitutes. Gray, 64, allegedly lavished gifts on the young men, using the church’s money to furnish them with credit cards, apartments, and, in one case, a Harvard education.
More than once I was paid for my services with a handful of crinkled ones and fives.
Why am I not shocked? During the 1990s, when I worked as an escort in Denver, Colorado, I estimate at least 15 percent of my clientele were clergy or connected with the church in some way. There were one-timers and there were guys who came back again and again and again, and they were all the same: positively giddy when the encounter began, unable to look you in the eye as they left. The excitement that initially animated them was wholly overshadowed by the despondency and guilt that would overcome them as soon as it was over.
I can’t imagine the guilt they were feeling. Not only were they having sex with another man – a sin punishable by God, in their minds–but I believe many of them were doing exactly what Father Gray did: stealing from their own churches. Maybe not a million bucks, maybe not even so much that anyone would notice. But more than once I was paid for my services with a handful of crinkled ones and fives. I would think to myself, how could they take from their own church’s collection plate? The answer is simple and sad: addicts will do whatever they need to do to support their habit.
I recall one church leader from Nebraska who prayed after an encounter with me, then sent me a religious book in the mail afterward. Another (who became a regular) always talked about the house he shared with a bunch of "buddies." And then there was the client who, after hiring me for sex, I was startled to see standing at the altar one day, presiding over the Catholic wedding of a friend of mine. It would be funny if it wasn’t so sad. I felt for my married and religious clients. They were truly unhappy and confused. Some would confess and pour out their hearts with me. Many would cry.
Like Haggard, most of these men don’t use their real names with the escorts they hire, and I’m sure they feel that part of what they’re paying for is anonymity. And for the most part, they are correct – there is an unwritten understanding that all encounters are confidential. I think back to all the clergy, politicians, sports personalities, and actors whose careers I could have ruined, but that was not me and not what I was in the business of doing.
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