NEW YORK — Evangelical leader Ted Haggard, in apologizing for contacts with a gay prostitute, said he had sought help to combat a “repulsive and dark” side of his life — but no approach had proven effective.

Even as he pledges to undergo further counseling, Haggard’s comments have rekindled debate over the controversial premise that people can overcome same-sex attractions through “reparative therapy.” It’s a concept espoused by many religious conservatives, and disputed by many mental health experts.

“Haggard is Exhibit A of how people can’t change their sexual orientation,” said Wayne Besen, a gay-rights activist and author. “With all that he had to lose — a wife, children, a huge church — he had to be who he was in the end. He couldn’t pray away the gay.”

Haggard denied some of the prostitute’s claims but confessed to “sexual immorality” and resigned earlier this month as pastor of his 14,000-member New Life Church in Colorado. He gave up the presidency of the National Association of Evangelicals.

“There’s a part of my life that is so repulsive and dark that I have been warring against it for all of my adult life,” he wrote to his congregation. “Through the years, I’ve sought assistance in a variety of ways, with none of them proving to be effective in me.”

Haggard did not specify how he had sought help or describe the healing-and-restoration program he vows to pursue now — but did say he deserved to be “disciplined and corrected.”

Clinton Anderson, director of the American Psychological Association’s Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Concerns Office, found Haggard’s statement dismaying.

“There’s a profound sadness that someone should be saddled culturally with such a negative attitude toward a part of themselves,” Anderson said. “From our vantage point as psychologists, his self-repulsion is not necessary, it’s not justified.”

California psychologist Joseph Nicolosi — a leading advocate of reparative therapy — said such second-guessing of Haggard was inappropriate.

“If this man is saying, ’This is a part of me that I abhor,’ why can’t we respect that?” Nicolosi asked. “Why do we have to attribute that to something external and take away the dignity of the individual to express how he feels?”

Nicolosi is president of the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH), representing therapists who believe it’s appropriate to help clients try to change their sexual orientation. Some take a secular, psychoanalytical approach; other allies of NARTH favor prayer-based counseling.

Nicolosi suggested that he could help Haggard if the evangelist was prepared for “deep, emotional work.”

“We’re talking about looking at your life squarely in the eye — facing the realities that you did not get certain central affirmations from your mother or your father,” Nicolosi said.

NARTH’s views are considered fringe by the American Psychiatric Association and the American Psychological Association. Both declared in the 1970s that homosexuality was not a mental disorder and does not warrant a “cure.”

“There’s nothing good that can come from conversion therapy,” said Doug Haldeman, a Seattle psychologist who specializes in gay-related issues. “The wreckage left behind, for some who go through it, is frightening — they’re depressed, suicidal.”