UPDATE:  By the way, many think this scandal will impact the election, as it is likely to lessen the evangelical vote.  Among those who think that is Stephen Bennett, a top spokesman of the religious right.  According to AmericaBlog, Bennett sent out an email:

Stephen ended, "Will this affect the elections next Tuesday? Are Republicans disenfranchised with the hypocrisy within their own party – especially the hypocrisy within the driving force – the Christian Conservative base? You better believe it.

"The more and more hypocrisy I see each day, the more I realize next Tuesday we are going to get EXACTLY what we deserve. Yet I must NEVER forget where I came from and always remember ‘But for the grace of God, there go I.’"

Josh Marshall agrees that this has a political fallout:

This is the conservative equivalent of Jesse Jackson getting caught wearing a hood at a Klan cross burning. The political implications are enormous.

While evangelical Christians have been a force in national politics for the last two decades, most evangelicals still harbor a deep disaffection with politics. It remains a predominately secular endeavour, in their view, and for many evangelicals there is a strongly held sense that politics, like other aspects of the pop culture, corrupts those who come in contact with it. That has always been the headwind facing Republicans seeking to rally evangelicals to political purpose.

Foley and Haggard are turning the headwind into a full-blown gale for the GOP.

Anyway, back to Haggard.  Here’s Pastor Ted Haggard — the recently outted gay evangelical leader who pays for sex with male prostitutes and/or buys crystal meth from them, as depicted in the recent documentary, Jesus Camp:

He consults with Bush and his advisors every Monday, the film says.

Well, probably not anymore, I’m guessing.

RELATED:  Haggard with another upstanding member of the evangelical community:

Here’s a good promo which shows where Haggard stands stood in the evangelical pecking order:

ALSO:  A video clip of Haggard saying that Hell is a physical place, and Mahatma Gandhi is in it.  Nice.

And here’s the joke of the day:

"If you study hard, do your homework, lead a moral life, try to practice what you preach, you can do well. And if you don’t, you end up as the pastor of a mega-church in Colorado, the head of a major grassroots evangelical organization, a prominent adviser to the president, and, allegedly, a breathtaking hypocrite."

RELATED:  More bad Christians —

Kent Hovind, founder of Creation Science Evangelism and Dinosaur Adventure Land in Pensacola, was found guilty of 58 counts, including failure to pay $845,000 in employee-related taxes. He faces a maximum of 288 years in prison.

Jo Hovind was charged and convicted in 44 of the counts involving evading bank-reporting requirements. She faces up to 225 years in prison but was allowed to remain free pending the couple’s sentencing on Jan. 9.