I supposed I should be inured to the fact that whenever Pat Robertson opens his mouth, ignorance and hatred is going to come tumbling out like his tongue is falling down the stairs. But today he said something so vile and rancid that it deserves strong pushback.
On his Christian Broadcasting Network Program, the 700 Club, Robertson's toady sidekick, Terry Meeuwsen read a question from a viewer wondering if it was wrong for her church not to inform her that a man she was driving to worship services is dying of AIDS.
UPDATE: CNB has removed this video citing copyright claim. This sad little attempt at damage control will not help.
“What to say if you’re driving an elderly man whose got AIDS? Don’t have sex with them,” Robertson said, “unless there’s a cut or some bodily fluid transmission, I think you’re not going to catch it.”
That was ugly enough, but what came next will go down as one of the ugliest charges he has ever made against gay people, and that is saying something.
There are laws now, I think the homosexual community has put these draconian laws on the books that prohibit people from discussing this particular affliction, you can tell somebody you had a heart attack, you can tell them they’ve got high blood pressure, but you can’t tell anybody you’ve got AIDS.
You know what they do in San Francisco, some in the gay community there they want to get people so if they got the stuff they’ll have a ring, you shake hands, and the ring’s got a little thing where you cut your finger. Really. It’s that kind of vicious stuff, which would be the equivalent of murder.
In Meeuwsen's defense, you could tell she was trying to save him from himself, but to no avail. The CBN, recognizing just how outrageous this was even for an idiot of Pat's caliber, edited out the offensive moment when they posted the
full program on their website.
Clearly the CBN is ashamed of some of the stuff that Robertson spouts, otherwise they wouldn't have tampered with the evidence. The question is, what does this dangerous bigot have to say that would finally get him fired from the network? From his track record, a doubt there is any line which they won't let him cross, so long as they think they can just edit it out and pretend it never existed. They sure don't seem to know much about how the internet works.
Via Right Wing Watch
UPDATE via Joe My God:
"I was asked by a viewer whether she had a right to leave her church because she had been asked to transport an elderly man who had AIDS and about whose condition she had not been informed. My advice was that the risk of contagion in those circumstances was quite low and that she should continue to attend the church and not worry about the incident.
In my own experience, our organization sponsored a meeting years ago in San Francisco where trained security officers warned me about shaking hands because, in those days, certain AIDS-infected activists were deliberately trying to infect people like me by virtue of rings which would cut fingers and transfer blood.
I regret that my remarks had been misunderstood, but this often happens because people do not listen to the context of remarks which are being said. In no wise (sic) were my remarks meant as an indictment of the homosexual community or, for that fact, to those infected with this dreadful disease." - Pat Robertson, in a statement emailed to me by the head publicist for the 700 Club.
Oh no, Pat. Your remarks accusing us of intentionally infecting people with HIV and saying it is the equivalent of murder is not an indictment of the homosexual community. It was a butterfly kiss of Christian love.
7:25 PM PT: Update 2: The Huffington Post has the video available here.