A Ridiculous Effort to Rebrand Pat Robertson

by Michael A. Jones

Published February 18, 2009 @ 09:03PM PT

Pat Robertson is one of the most ardent anti-LGBT political/religious figures in the entire country. His track record for explosive and hateful rhetoric when it comes to sexual orientation and homosexuality is perhaps only second to James Dobson. Among his more outrageous comments on gay and lesbian issues?

• "The thing is, there's no civilization in history that has ever survived when it embraces homosexuality as opposed to marriage between a man and a woman. Once that happens, civilization is going to spin out of control. It's happened before, it'll happen again. And, uh, it's not bigotry to say look at history, that's what happened." -- August 27, 2008
• Along with Rev. Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson blamed gays and lesbians (as well as the ACLU and People for the American Way) for the attacks of September 11 -- September 13, 2001
• "Homosexuality is an abomination. Many of those people involved with Adolf Hitler were Satanists, many of them were homosexuals. The two things seem to go together." -- January 21, 1993
• "[Homosexuals]want to come into churches and disrupt church services and throw blood all around and try to give people AIDS and spit in the face of ministers." -- January 18, 1995
• "I am absolutely persuaded one of the reasons so many lesbians are at the forefront of the pro-choice movement is because being a mother is the unique characteristic of womanhood, and these lesbians will never be mothers naturally, so they don't want anybody else to have that privilege either." -- January 18, 1993

And those comments are just barely scratching the surface.  Yet, despite this history of inflammatory rhetoric and hate speech, U.S. News and World Report's Dan Gilgoff has a post up right now that suggests that Pat Robertson is turning into a political maverick with a "post-partisan posture." Say what?

Gilgoff cites Robertson's surprise endorsement of Rudy Guiliani during the 2008 GOP Presidential primary, as well as Robertson's willingness to appear with Rev. Al Sharpton in an advertisement addressing climate change as proof positive that Robertson has turned the page from wingnut to maverick.

That gives us cause for concern.  If what passes for "maverick" on the GOP side these days is someone who is able to blame September 11 on gays and lesbians, and say that same-sex marriage will bring about the end of civilization, then the GOP has some serious problems.  For Gilgoff to boost the public relations image of Robertson by pretending he's politically "mavericky" is a disservice to the concept of bold leadership.  Robertson isn't a maverick; he's a televangelist who likes to see himself in the news.

Or to put it another way...Pat Robertson might be willing to admit that climate change is a serious evil facing the world.  But he's also likely to think that gays, lesbians and the ACLU are causing it...and well, that doesn't make him a maverick.  That makes him nuts.