TV preacher Pat Robertson, a towering figure in the anti-gay hate group movement, has said a lot of crazy things about gay people over the years — that God would smite Orlando because Disney allowed gays to host an event there and that gays and agreeing with his colleague, the late Jerry Falwell, that gays, the ACLU and others caused the 9/11 attacks. But his latest anti-gay smear represents a new low — a hateful accusation that makes no sense — so crazy that his own network censored it out after he said it live during the broadcast:
Today on the 700 Club, Pat Robertson told co-host Terry Meeuwsen that gay men in cities like San Francisco attempt to spread HIV/AIDS to others by cutting them with a special ring when shaking hands. However, one could not hear Robertson make the remarks on the episode his Christian Broadcasting Network posted online, as the company once again appears to have edited Robertson’s comments after they aired.
While responding to a question from a woman who wondered if it was wrong for the church not to inform her that a man she was driving to worship services is “dying of AIDS,” Robertson admitted that he “used to think it was transmitted by saliva and other things, now they say it may be sexual contact.”
“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.”
But Robertson didn’t stop there.
“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,” he continued.
Despite Meeuwsen’s best attempts to steer the conversation away from Robertson’s anti-gay paranoia, Robertson insisted that gay people use special rings to transmit the virus.
“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,” Robertson said. “Really. It’s that kind of vicious stuff, which would be the equivalent of murder.”
So how would these rings work? Presumably, the bearer would use the ring first to cut his own hand or finger and then, whilst shaking hands with other people, use the ring to cut the stranger’s hand as well, thus transmitting the infected blood?
The fantastical idea that HIV positive people would create a devious device for spreading the virus in order to add to their ranks is clearly the product of a demented imagination.
Maybe people who are close to Pat Robertson, who is 83, will take notice of what appears to be his encroaching dementia, remove him from public life and let him sink into senility in private.
