American Prospect: TBN's Paul Crouch - a homosexual fling?

Frankly, I couldn't care less whether Paul Crouch did or did not shag former Trinity Broadcasting Network employee and frequent jailbird Enoch Lonnie Ford back in 1996. If he did, all it reveals is another facet of the hypocrisy that clings to this behemoth "Christian" corporation like stink to a donkey. No big revelation there - TBN is corrupt, through and through.

It's facts like the following, and not some sex scandal, that really cheese me off:

Nor is it easy to ignore the Crouches' gaudy set, which fuses the kitschy style of a 1950s suburban living room with that of a royalty-themed Las Vegas motel. To watch the Crouches is an exercise in visual overstimulation.

For their devoted viewers, their appearance carries a deeper significance. Every aspect of the Crouches' look is carefully calculated as an aesthetic accompaniment to their Dominionist theology, which urges Christians to acquire as much wealth, power, and influence as possible in order to put the world's secular institutions under the control of biblical law.

To earn the blind loyalty of their viewers, who are often poor or working class and whom Jan Crouch routinely calls 'you little people,' the Crouches have cast themselves as spiritual aristocrats entrusted with handling God's riches. Seated on purple thrones like the king and queen of an alternate universe, the Crouches plead with viewers for their 'seed money,' reassuring them that their donations will be planted in heaven and blossom into anything they seek, from material wealth to eternal salvation.

Though it's hard to know how much of this money has actually made it to heaven (especially because the TBN keeps its financial records secret), a good chunk of it has made the Crouches wealthy; in 2001, they bought a $5 million home in Orange County, California, described by real-estate agents as 'a palatial estate with ocean and city views.'