There are few things I am more loath to do than criticize the content of any other person’s character. Insofar as I am able to live according to my own ideals, I try to give other people the benefit of the doubt. If it is possible to think well of someone, I will strive to do so to the greatest extent possible.
I do not know Pat Roberson. I have never met him, and have little expectation that I ever will. No doubt he has many wonderful characteristics. However, I will tell you now that he is a liar and a hypocrite. His much-vaunted Christianity is built on sand, and his status as a moral leader is fraudulent.
Why? This (via TPM):
Televangelist Pat Robertson claimed on his show, the “700 Club,” on Tuesday that gay people in San Francisco have deliberately spread AIDS using rings designed to cut people, according to a video published by Right Wing Watch.
“You know what they do in San Francisco? Some of the gay community there, they want to get people. So, if they’ve got the stuff, they’ll have a ring. You shake hands and the ring’s got a little thing where you cut your finger,” Robertson said in the video. “Really. I mean it’s that kind of vicious stuff, which would be the equivalent of murder.”
This is a lie. It is an utter, unmitigated falsehood. There is not an syllable of truth in it.
The calumny that gay people are out to spread AIDS deliberately is one of the most vicious falsehoods I have ever heard. I heard it in the evangelical church of my youth, and fool that I am I assumed that it had died long ago. It is as poisonous as any lie promulgated by the Third Reich.
Whatever the content of his soul, it is between Pat Robertson and his God. I cannot presume to speak for the sincerity of his faith. But I will tell you now that a man so flagrantly willing to disregard the penultimate Commandment has no business holding himself out as a moral authority. Whatever judgment awaits him in the life to come I cannot say, but he deserves the full weight of our condemnation here and now.
I got the liar part. Where’s the hypocritical part?Report
Because the Ten Commandments are as foundational to Christian teaching as any other part of holy writ, and he is bearing blatant false witness.Report
That’s a little anti-climactic.
I thought you were going to say his700 Club WWJD bracelets secrete smallpox.Report
Is it possible that he’s really gullible and not particularly bright instead of intentionally lying?Report
If that is true, I’m not sure there is any real difference. It’s possible that someone fed him this story and he just chose to repeat it without any proof or verification, but do you think that he would have done the same thing if someone passed him a similar story about evangelical Christians?Report
That seems like a distinction without a difference.
Though I think you are right. I’ve had this debate before about which of the big right-wing guys are true believers in their nuttiness as compared to which ones are cynical manipulators spreading it for profit.
Call it the Elmer Gantry questionReport
Does it really matter whether somebody is a sincere believe or a cynical manipulator? The result is evil either way and its not like anybody is going to change.Report
That is why I called it a distinction without a difference.Report
Well, I guess it might make a difference depending on how we’re interpreting the ninth commandment. I agree that the result is about the same.Report
I’m no expert, but I don’t remember anything in the Law about insufficient fact-checking.Report
I remember this rumor, or a rumor like it, from the early 90s. The only people I knew who believed it then were rabidly anti-gay evangelicals. I assume that it was spread in Robertson’s circle as well, and this is him finally bringing it up publicly, because he is at this point so completely out of touch that he’s forgotten that he’s only supposed to spread rumors like this among people who already think the way he does about teh gays.Report
Snopes suggests it’s been around for a long time, in many different permutations:
https://www.google.com/#fp=6da2069b7a32db09&q=hiv+ring+pinprick+site:snopes.com&safe=offReport
I also grew up in fear of gay people, because of stuff exactly like this.Report
Sigh. I feel for you Russell. That’s pretty awful. If there’s any comfort, perhaps it’s in that one way or the other this guy’s living a lie, and the ultimate end for him ain’t gonna be what he’s expecting.Report
Yeah, but presumably at that point there won’t be any Pat Robertson consciousness able to realize his mistake. That’s the problem with being an atheist — you can’t comfort yourself with the thought that people will eventually be confronted with the Truth.Report
No wait, the AIDS ring is totally real…
http://www.yankodesign.com/2008/06/25/viral-jewelry/…
Though it’s in questionable taste, to say the least.Report
Sigh. He actually signalled that he was capable of independent thought with the whole marijuana thing and was downright compassionate when it came to the idea of divorce of someone with Alzheimer’s.
I suppose him actually opening his eyes was too much to hope for.
Back to waiting for him to be called back home…Report
Its pretty much a blood libel accusation.Report
Yes. I considered using that language in the OP and decided against it, for fear of causing offense to Jews. But that is exactly what it is.Report
I freely refer to race riots against African-Americans and others in United States history as pogroms. We refer to segregated and poor ethnic neighborhoods as ghettos. The lexicon of racism and hate has its origins in Jew-hatred.Report
Good call.Report
It lacks only the slight elaboration that they need HIV-infected blood to paint their Gay Pride floats.Report
Ya gotta wonder if this was started by some closeted evangelical-type who came down with AIDS and wanted a cover story.Report
“Honest, I got this when I pricked my finger. I wasn’t fingering a …”Report
I doubt you’d get aids if all you’re doing is fingering. not unless you do it till you bleedReport
Oh please, Pat is just exposing a conspiracy between the CIA and the militant homosexual one world liberal groups (sponsored by the lizard people) to turn American INTO SODDOM AND BRING ABOUT DA EVIL!!!
God Bless ‘merica and Pat.
*sniff*
/sarcasm offReport
Well, now we know one way urban legends get propagated. And really, to expect critical thought from the likes of Pat Robertson on a subject matter eliciting strong emotions from the man is setting a high expectation.
With that said, obviously this is several levels of obnoxious and beneath contempt.Report
As I liked to say back in grad school, nonsense is nonsense. But the history of nonsense is scholarship.Report
“to expect critical thought from” from the majority of Americans is expecting too much anyway.Report
I wish I could say I was surprised.Report
Ah, famous and wealthy leaders of Christianity… You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.
Seriously, is there one wealthy leader (famous pastor, preacher) of Christianity who isn’t a monster? I suppose there is, but as a group, there are a lot of bad apples. Never mind the pedophiles, homophobes, and misogynists in the Catholic hierarchy.)Report
And the various grifters and embezzlers elsewhere (more recently in Singapore, City Harvest Church)Report
There have to be some mainliners that are different.
IIRC there was a TAL special about a former mega-church pastor who eventually decided that hell was bunk and wrong and immoral.Report
Reverend Wright might have been many things, but he’s certainly not a monster.
And he was reasonably famous beforehand.Report
A few thoughts –
I think it matters a lot whether someone is crazy or a liar. It doesn’t affect the truth of what he says, but it says something about his intentions. Robertson is, by my estimation, a lunatic. This statement of his probably doesn’t make the top ten list of crazy things he’s ever said, and not because it isn’t crazy, but because of the serious competition it has.
There’s a thing I’ve noticed among conspiracy theorists: they believe all of them. You’re going to find an occasional person who believes one or two, but you’re never going to find someone who believes only 50% of them. Once you condition your mind to assume that everything the public believes is false, you accept everything (everything!) the public doesn’t believe as true. I think of this as the George Noory Syndrome. I used to listen to his Coast-to-Coast AM radio show a lot. Every caller believes the entire set of things “‘they’ don’t want you to know about”. When an occasional guest would be on to talk about UFO’s but didn’t have any opinion about the Fed or chemtrails, the audience would react badly.
My personal favorite crazy thing that Robertson said was about Haiti being cursed by their pact with the Devil. It sticks out in my mind because he said this to a commentator on his show, and she had to have known that her reaction would be enshrined on Youtube – but she went along with it. What must have been going on in her mind? She knew that she was sitting next to a crazy person, but she didn’t have the guts to call him out, I guess for the sake of her job.
Anyway, my take is that Pat Robertson is an exact parallel to Michael Moore – he says nonsense that one side likes, and even though 95% of the people on that side know it’s nonsense, they don’t want to say anything to offend the 5% of their allies.Report
I’m shocked that it’s news to you that Robertson is a liar, and therefore a hypocrite. I’ve known that for over a decade.Report