There’s an old saying that goes the only reason someone is still alive is “Heaven doesn’t want ’em and Hell is afraid that they’ll talk over.”
Pat Robertson, who was a Southern Baptist minister and TV personality, along with a one-time Presidential candidate, finally died on June 8. For many people, he wasn’t a man of God, but a man of hate and biased. As the world began to change in the post-WWII era, Robertson, like others, such as Billy Graham, Oral Roberts and Jerry Falwell, were only glad if something appeal to white heterosexual men.
He called feminism as a “socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians. Robertson blamed 9/11 on “pagans, abortionists, feminists, gays, lesbians, the American Civil Liberties Union and the People For the American Way.” When the 2010 earthquake on Haiti killed about 250,000 people, he blamed it on a “pact with the devil.” Ironically, it showed out little Robertson knew. Haiti has more Catholics per capita than in America.
You can pretty much Google anything Robertson said that was controversial or hateful. He even said non-religious children should be violently beaten until they respect Christian beliefs. But he never respected anyone else’s beliefs. He even called for the U.S. government to assassinate Hugo Chavez of Venezuela.
But like a lot of angry, conservative white men in America, it didn’t matter that he was speaking truth. He was saying what people wanted to hear. Who cares if he was totally full of shit. The problem wasn’t Robertson, it was the assholes sitting at home watching The 700 Club believing him. “Who’s more foolish – the fool or the fool that follows?” as Obi-Wan Kenobi once said.
Born the son of Sen. Absalom Willis Robertson, a Southern Democrat from Virginia, who opposed Civil Rights legislation in the 1960s, it was no surprise that Robertson spewed bigotry and prejudice calling it the gospel. Along with Falwell founder of the Moral Majority (which was initially opposed to integrated at Bob Jones University), they convinced Americans that Ronald Reagan was a better Christian than Jimmy Carter. And during the Regan Adminstration, the Republican Party moved farther right and became more of the Christian Fascism party it is now.
It wasn’t uncommon for clergy get involved in politics. Rev. Gustav Breiglab fought corruption in the Los Angeles area during the 1920 and 1930s. But once Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. started preaching non-violent resistance and wanting equality, religious leaders were quick to criticize. Personally, I’ve never understood why one single black person in this country is a Christian, seeing how people have used the Bible to support slavery and racial segregation. But that’s just me.
People like Robertson and others did read the Bible. They just felt the Roman Empire was doing a better job. They had control and they had power. What they say went and if anyone messed with them, the Empire dealt with them. Since the Civl Rights era, people like Robertson saw that if they let it happen, they couldn’t maintain order. So, they rallied against the Equal Rights Amendment and rights for the LGBTQIA community.
Fortunately, death came to the rest. Falwell died in 2007 while still saying the Apocalypse would come during his lifetime, even though it’s not in the Bible. Roberts (who fired my ex’s father because her mother had the audacity and sin to wear shorts), died in 2009. And Billy Graham finally died in 2018. It would be nice to say Robertson’s death is the final problem in this country.
But like a hydra, you cut off one head, another grows back but even more so. Texas pastor Dillon Awes called for the LGBTQIA community to be exterminated. Moms for Liberty, a mostly white conservative (and Christian-based even though they deny it) is ruining the public education system. Anti-Semitism is increasing. Anti-Asian violence and crimes are up.
At the worst, all of this by these extremist pastors on the right has led to the election of Donald Trump as President and the continual defense of him no matter what. Roe v. Wade has been struck down, which they have wanted. States are pushing for laws that are Fascist against anyone who isn’t white, heterosexual or Christian. Robertson wasn’t a man of God. He was a man of evil, a man of hate. Jesus taught people to love their enemies. Robertson and others like him told white people to not like anyone who didn’t look like them in the mirror.
It seems almost fitting Robertson died during June which is Pride Month but also within days of a 37-count indictment against Trump for espionage. They made a deal with the devil but it was worth it if they could hold on to power one more day. Less than half of Americans don’t even claim a religion according to reason polls. And Millennials and Gen Zers aren’t following in their parents’ footsteps by following a religion based on exlcusion.
Robertson shouldn’t be mourned. He didn’t mourn the quarter of a million people in Haiti who died in 2010. He didn’t mourn all the people who died from Jim Crow lynchings. He didn’t mourn all the LGBTQIA community members who committed suicide or were victims of violence. Desecration of his grave shouldn’t be a crime but it should be justice. If his next of kin is smart, they’d cremate him and scatter his ashes.
The world is a better place with people like Robertson gone. Sadly, there were a lot of people who were born after him that didn’t live 93 years. But they did more with their shorter time on this Earth than he did. If there is a Hell, Robertson belongs there. There is no Heaven that would allow him. Because even if he did make it past the Pearly Gates, he would be surrounded by souls who he openly despised and hated. It’s his own personal Hell. And he deserves it for an eternity.
What do you think? Please comment.
Zane Says 