Pat Robertson, Poster Boy for the Un-Christian Right

The subject of AIDS came up on The 700 Club yesterday.  A caller explained to host Pat Robertson that she volunteered through her church to provide a ride to worship services each week.  Her church assigned a nursing home resident to be her passenger.  She found out that the man she had been driving is "dying of AIDS" and wanted to know if it was wrong for her church not to warn her.

Pat Robertson, self-proclaimed Mega-Christian, responded in a way that would have made Jesus weep.

what eye thynk:   First, I want to address the caller's question with two questions of my own: 

• If you had known the man you were driving to church each Sunday was an AIDS patient, would you have refused to drive him?  
• Where in your Bible will I find the lesson where Jesus explains that this would be the right thing to do? 

Obviously this woman's church was welcoming to this man, so I have to wonder where she got the idea that "Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these...you did for me" could be decided on a sliding scale of her own devising.

Now, as for Mr. Robertson, whose response--even for him--was amazing in its un-Christian-ness...

First, he lied by telling the caller that her church couldn't warn her about her passenger's illness because "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."

There is no such law; there is no such attempt by the homosexual community to pass such a law. There are, however, laws in several states that make it a criminal act NOT to tell a partner that you are HIV positive. But talking about those laws doesn't fit with the hate filled rhetoric of so called Christians like Pat Robertson.

Mr. Robertson then went on to advise the woman not to have sex with the man, (what?!), because he "used to think it was transmitted by saliva and other things, now they say it may be sexual contact."

But Mr. Robertson wasn't finished with the subject or his fact adverse philippic; and it is his next statement that demonstrates Mr. Robertson's willingness to sow his own brand of hate in anyway he can:  "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."

Even Right Wing Watch realized that Mr. Robertson had gone too far and edited out that last statement when they posted Tuesday's broadcast on-line.

Later Mr. Robertson issued a semi-apology:  "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."

How his remarks could have been misunderstood in any context remains a mystery; but his total disregard for the Ninth Commandment, (you know, the one that says you shouldn't lie) should be obvious in every context.

If truth in advertising laws were applied to people like Pat Robertson, the rules would prevent this man from calling himself a Christian at all.