Moral Majority Minister Admits Adultery, Resigns
Confronted by his congregation, the leader of Maine’s Moral Majority has resigned as minister of a Bangor church after admitting that he committed adultery.
“I am resigning of my own volition because I am guilty of adultery,” said the Rev. Herman C. Frankland, pastor of the 3,000-member Bangor Baptist Church and Maine’s best-known fundamentalist preacher, praised by the Rev. Jerry Falwell in a recent visit for his “commitment to Christ.”
“I have no excuse, nor will I attempt to make one,” Frankland added at a news conference late Tuesday.
In the past, Frankland has taken strong stands against such issues as gay rights and abortion and once ran as an independent candidate for governor.
He was the spokesman for the Moral Majority in Maine and president of the state’s Christian Schools Assn.
The church now has its own adjunct Christian school, with neaarly 300 students, and a Christian radio station.
Some church members said a young woman who belongs to the church said she had had an affair with the 50-year-old Frankland. The church members then confronted Frankland with the story.
Frankland is married and the father of a son, who is a Baptist minister in Ellsworth.
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