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Pat Robertson
Founder and Chairman, The Christian Broadcasting Network
Host, "The 700 Club"
—After tragic shooting at Orlando gay club, said “the best thing to do is to sit on the sidelines and let [LGBTQ rights advocates and Muslims] kill themselves.”
—Because of marriage equality: “I warned about this years and years ago that it was going to happen and it did, it has. What’s next? What’s next is what happened to Sodom and Gomorrah. It is just a question of how soon the wrath of God is going to come on this land.”
—Most trans people are “frauds.”
—Insists: “You know, those who are homosexual will die out because they don’t reproduce. You know, you have to have heterosexual sex to reproduce. Same thing with that church, it’s doomed, it’s going to die out because it’s the most nonsensical thing I’ve heard in a long time.”
—Compares gay people (and their supposed ability to “change”) to thieves, rapists, and murderers: “It is a hate crime to say somebody can change their sexual preference? … Anybody who has ministered to thousands of people … know[s] very well that the power of God can change people’s orientation. A murderer can change. A rapist can change. A thief can change. That’s what the Gospel is about. It’s not a hate crime.”
—Claims HIV+ gay people in San Francisco and other cities use special rings to cut and transmit the virus to others.
—Claimed out lesbian Equal Employment Opportunity Commissioner Chai Feldblum “flies in the face of the traditional morality in this country.” (9:20-9:27)
—Of LGBTQ rights groups: “Some of these radical gay groups are willing to do anything in the world to have their way of doing sex legitimized by this country. They’ll tear down any institution, the church—the Episcopal Church, for example—in order to have their way, and it’s basically wrong.” (:53-1:14)
—On Feminism: “Feminism is a socialist, anti-family, political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians.”
—On Christian acceptance of LGBTQ people: “You want to be loving and warm and let them know that you love them, BUT you cannot accept it and you cannot be an enabler. If they’re living together as a homosexual and you’re a Christian you cannot say I accept this lifestyle. Right now there’s an incredible barrage of activity forcing people to accept the homosexual lifestyle. Well, do we accept adultery? Do we accept fornication? Do we accept immorality? … Well, the answer is no. I don’t think we ought to be accepting of it.”
—After NY state legalized same-sex marriage, offered this: “I think we need to remember the term sodomy came from a town known as Sodom and Sodom was destroyed by God Almighty and the thing that they practiced was homosexual activity and even they tried to rape angels who came down there, so that’s the kind of people they were. But beyond that, Jesus when He spoke of Sodom He didn’t say anything about the homosexuality he talked about just the fact that business was as usual until God decided to destroy it. And He sent an angel down there and He said to Lot and his family, ‘get out now because I’m gonna destroy this whole area.’ That’s where sodomy came from, we use the term sodomy and it means Sodom. What’s it like? We’re heading that way as a nation. In history there’s never been a civilization ever in history that has embraced homosexuality and turned away from traditional fidelity, traditional marriage, traditional child-rearing, and has survived. There isn’t one single civilization that has survived that had openly embraced homosexuality. So you say, ‘what’s going to happen to America?’ Well if history is any guide, the same thing’s going to happen to us. We’re on a slippery slope and it’s going to kick over in a hurry. We’re looking at financial problems of huge magnitude…. I think we need all of God’s help we can get. I don’t think we’re exactly setting ourselves up for his favor.” (12:59-15:01)
—After Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made a speech to the U.N. encouraging dignity for LGBTQ people abroad, Robertson predicted: “You know, there is a God in heaven and He is just. Thomas Jefferson, ‘I tremble when I remember that God is just.’ He is just, he is not going to allow this kind of thing to go on forever. This country cannot continue to violate God’s principles and to make a mockery of His laws and think we’re going to get away with it. And when the blow comes, it’s going to be horrible.”
—Advice to the sister of a lebsian: “ You say, ‘should I go to my sister’s wedding, should I participate,’ the answer is to tell your sister, ‘I love you but I cannot participate in a ceremony that is contrary to God’s word, period.’ If she doesn’t like it, if that breaks the union between you, that’s tough luck.”
—Tells a father of a gay son that he should encourage “ex-gay” therapy, instructing that “normally speaking, a person who has acquired this can un-acquire it.” (:53-:59)
—Advice to the friend of a prospective gay parent: “I know about what happened when a young man was taken away from his Christian mother by a court and given to his homosexual father. And the next thing you know, that guy was a flaming homosexual, and if I’m not mistaken, he contracted AIDS…. To take on somebody else’s child is difficult enough, but to do so in a homosexual environment where the contacts that the man is going to be having—his various male lovers coming in, and this youngster’s going to be exposed to all that? The answer is: this would be a terrible environment. So if there’s any way you can do it subtlety [sic] say, ‘Look, Jesus loves you, but I think right now we ought to get you straightened out before you start taking on some other responsibility.’ A life of a child is very significant, and that won’t be a help for him.”
—Robertson spoke approvingly of a person leaving their spouse if they had Alzheimers. He said he wouldn’t “put a guilt trip” on someone for divorcing a spouse with Alzheimer’s disease, calling Alzheimer’s itself “a kind of death.”
—Claims gay marriages “don’t ‘bring forth anything except disease and suffering.”
—Robertson attacked Planned Parenthood: “Planned Parenthood has gotten 100 million dollars—50 million each—from the Ford Foundation and the Rockefeller foundation. Why do these wealthy so-called Republican organizations pay for it? Because they were alarmed by the growth of the Black community and they didn’t want to have to support a bunch of indigent Black babies.” (0:46—0:59)
—Robertson on the National Organization for Women: “NOW is saying that in order to be a woman, you’ve got to be a lesbian.”
—Claims “so many people who are in the so-called homosexual lifestyle found that some camp counselor, some coach, some older person, older teenager or whatever, had started them on the road to homosexuality”; prays they will be freed from the “so-called homosexual lifestyle.”
—Claims that many gay people “are into this homosexual thing because they’ve been abused by a parent, abused by a coach, abused by a sibling, abused by a friend, they’re little boys and little girls and they don’t know any better and then they somehow think, ‘well I must be gay,’ they aren’t they are heterosexual and they just need to come out of that.”
—Again equated homosexuality with murder, lying, disobedience: “God knows your sin. Some of you have been involved in homosexuality, some of you have had an abortion, some of you have actually committed murder, you have lied, you have been disobedient to your parents, you have stolen money from your business, and God says if your repent and come to me I’ll wash the slate clean, you can get rid of it all.”
The GLAAD Accountability Project catalogs anti-LGBTQ rhetoric and discriminatory actions of politicians, commentators, organization heads, religious leaders, and legal figures, who have used their platforms, influence and power to spread misinformation and harm LGBTQ people.
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