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Pat Robertson

Watch Pat Robertson Say 'It's Not For You To Judge' Transsexuals (VIDEO)

A clip is circulating from back around 2013-2014, when according to people like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and others, there was no such thing as transgender children or adults. The clip is from the Christian Broadcast Network (CBN). CBN has brought you all of the greatest fundamentalist and evangelical hits over the years: homophobia, racism, climate change denialism, bad science takes, anti-net neutrality propaganda, and in recent years pro-Saudi murdering journalist positions and COVID-19 hooey about hydroxychloroquine.

Many of the greatest CBN hits came from former Southern Baptist minister and religious media mogul Pat Robertson. Well, nine or 10 years ago, Robertson was doing one of his famous question and answer sessions on CBN when a query from a man named “David” came in asking Robertson to answer this conundrum: “I work with two people who have decided that they are females. I know what the Bible says about homosexuality, but is it wrong to refer to them as females since they've had their gender status changed in the eyes of the law?”

That’s a solid question from someone who has been told that homosexuality is a sin and verboten in the Bible. I’m sure famous Christian conservative Robertson will quickly begin railing against transgender people being a fad or a grooming tactic for heathens or something, right? Right?

Robertson, as was his want in the late years of his show, began by being slightly dismissive about understanding “all that.” But then he very clearly stated the fact that “there are men who are in a woman's body. It's very rare, but it's true. Or women that are in men's bodies—and they say that they want a sex change. And that is a very permanent thing.” And while Robertson did believe that his understanding of what kinds of medical procedures one might need in order to achieve these goals constituted “a radical procedure,” he also believed it was a real thing: “I don't think there's any sin associated with that. I don't condemn somebody for doing that.”

In fact, while the question was clearly a nuanced and messy one for the Book of Revelations Santa Claus-like Christianity Robertson and broadcasters encourage, Robertson didn’t believe it was the kind of thing one should worry their sensitive little souls about, ending his answer by saying, “It's not for you to decide or to judge. All right.”

There has been homophobia in Judeo-Christian religion for a very long time. The evangelicals and Christian conservatives in our country did not invent it. However, many people whose faith is connected to those books and practices have been able to evolve their understandings of various documents in the Old and New Testaments. They have done this because unlike evangelicals and many Christian conservatives, they have continued to apply context to their religion and its history, while also keeping the concept of metaphor alive.

But that isn’t the problem with evangelicals and Christian conservatives. The problem is those two groups, while pretending to be stoic and unyielding in their beliefs and readings and teachings, continue to change and move the goalposts of their religion as political norms ebb and flow. It is one thing to practice what one preaches, it is another thing to sort of only practice what you preach depending on what political power you believe you may achieve and/or maintain.

One of those things is living based on a worldview and spiritual philosophy you say brings you grace in this life, and the other is just politics. It isn’t a new statement or a rare statement, but it does bare repeating often: Evangelicals and Christian conservatives are simply politicians, and if you follow them you are receiving the same amount of spiritual guidance that you would get from any politician.


Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Press Secretary Jen Psaki

Jen Psaki Gently Bombs Pat Robertson’s 'White House Correspondent'

Reprinted with permission from Alternet

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki again was forced to deal with a right-wing reporter trying to inflame American politics by dredging up old GOP talking points.

David Brody, a reporter for Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network, asked Psaki what President Joe Biden not yet meeting with House Republican Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy says about "unity."

"I guess the question is," Brody said, President Biden "has not met with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, according to Kevin McCarthy. What does that say about unity?"

Brody continued, "There are some other legislative issues as it relates to HR1 and a commission to study packing the Supreme Court as you would say."

The White House would not describe right-sizing the Supreme Court as "packing" it, that's a GOP talking point, just as is twisting Biden's remarks about wanting unity.

"And there's a lot of other lists as well, budget reconciliation, so there's a lot of folks who talk about, tens of millions of people, they're concerned about that this doesn't seem like unity at all," Brody complained.

Unfazed, Psaki asked Brody, "Do you think tens of millions of people are concerned about him not meeting with Kevin McCarthy?"

Brody pushed back, claiming "tens of millions of people are concerned about HR1, budget reconciliation, and going with a 50-vote threshold," he claimed.

"I don't think the polling bears that out," Psaki said, correctly.

At least two-thirds of Americans (68 percent) support HR1, the For the People Act, a voting rights and election reform bill. That number includes a solid majority, 57 percent, of Republicans. And a majority of Americans support killing the filibuster to advance HR1 and a $15 minimum wage.

"I will say that the President's view is that bringing the country together is bringing the American people together," Psaki continued. "So when I say he's, he is focused on bringing you know, bringing people together, bringing Democrats or Republicans together, he's not talking about solving bipartisanship in 'this zip code here.'"

Watch:

Pat Robertson

Far-Right White Evangelicals Mourning ’Satanic Delusion’ Of Biden Victory

Reprinted with permission from Alternet

The Christian Right is in mourning over President Donald Trump being voted out of office. Pat Robertson, the far-right evangelical who founded the Christian Broadcasting Network, has declared that the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden on January 20, 2021 must be prevented, saying, "We will not give up this great country. And Satan, you cannot have it." But the irony is that the incoming president is much more religious than Trump, who has demonstrated how little he knows about Christianity and the Bible.

Although Trump was raised Presbyterian, religion was never a high priority in his life. But when he ran for president in 2016, Trump realized that the Christian Right was a prominent voting bloc in the GOP and went out of his way to pander to the far-right White evangelicals he had no connection to in the past. The Trump of the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s was more of a Blue Dog Democrat than a GOP culture warrior, and he spent a lot more time in casinos than in churches.

Journalist Ed Kilgore, in an article published by New York magazine on December 17, notes Trump's history of butchering Biblical references during his speeches.

Kilgore explains, "Before Donald Trump became the very favorite politician of White conservative evangelicals, he was regularly a figure of sport for displaying exceptional ignorance in all matters religious. A particularly rich example of his clumsiness occurred when he was campaigning at evangelical stronghold Liberty University early in 2016 and tried to quote a Bible verse that was very familiar to the audience, since it's etched on several buildings there."

Kilgore adds that there were many other "religious gaffes Trump committed while stumping for votes" in 2016.

"On another occasion along the campaign trail," Kilgore recalls, "Trump was asked about his favorite line of scripture. He delivered a word salad for a while and finally tried to recall 'an eye for an eye,' not the sort of thing Christians of any variety consider normative for the faith of the Prince of Peace…... Just prior to the Iowa caucuses, Trump was in a Council Bluffs church when a plate came down the pews with communion bread on it. The billionaire misidentified it as a collection plate and put a couple of bills on it."

Kilgore also notes that in 2017, Trump met with two Presbyterian minsters and was surprised to learn that they didn't consider themselves evangelicals but rather, described themselves as "Mainline Protestants."

Of course, anyone with even a basic knowledge of Christianity realizes that Presbyterians aren't evangelicals any more than Episcopalians or Lutherans — two other examples of Mainline Protestants — are evangelicals. And there's no way that either Biden, a devout Catholic, or former President Barack Obama, a Mainline Protestant, would have made that mistake or confused a communion plate with a collection plate. Unlike Trump, Biden and Obama both have a long history of being churchgoing Christians and obviously have an extensive knowledge of the Bible.



If Pat Robertson were to sit down with Biden or Obama, they could have an in-depth conversation about scripture. Yet Robertson, like much of the Christian Right, adores Trump while hating Biden and Obama — which underscores the deeply tribalist nature of the Christian Right.

The Christian Right has long been a hate movement, and it is as much about White nationalism and far-right identity politics as it is about Protestant fundamentalism. The late Rev. Jerry Falwell, Sr., founder of Liberty University and co-founder of the Moral Majority, was a notorious segregationist during the 1950s and 1960s, when he vigorously defended Jim Crow laws in the pulpit and argued that the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a not a true Christian because of his anti-segregation views. During the 1980s, Falwell defended the racist apartheid regime in South African and encouraged Christians to buy krugerrands to support it.

The late Republican Sen. Barry Goldwater, known for being an arch-conservative in his day, was vehemently critical of Falwell and the Christian Right during the 1980s — describing them as dangerous fanatics and warning that the GOP was making a huge mistake by allying itself with that movement. But many Republicans ignored Goldwater, much to the GOP's detriment.

To the Christian Right and far-right White evangelicals, the fact that Biden and Obama are more religious than Trump is irrelevant. Robertson, the Family Research Council's Tony Perkins, James Dobson (founder of Focus on the Family) and other evangelical Trump supporters are extreme tribalists, and they view Trump as part of their tribe — which is why Trump got a pass when, according to his former personal attorney Michael Cohen, he had extramarital affairs with a porn star (Stormy Daniels) and a Playboy model (Karen McDougal) and paid them hush money to keep quiet.

Trump repeatedly attacked Biden as anti-Christian during his 2020 presidential campaign. But in 2017, Trump didn't even know the difference between Presbyterians and evangelicals.

The Christian Right will miss Trump dearly when he leaves off on January 20, 2021. And no matter how much Biden goes to church or accurately quotes the Bible, it won't matter to the far-right evangelical extremists who value White identity politics above all else.

Televangelist Robertson Suggests Virus Is Punishment For Marriage Equality

Televangelist Robertson Suggests Virus Is Punishment For Marriage Equality

Televangelist Pat Robertson associated COVID-19 with marriage equality and abortion on Monday on Christian Broadcast Network's "The 700 Club."

His co-host Terry Meeuwsen read a comment from a viewer who asked about Robertson's reference to COVID-19 last week and whether "God heal our land and forgive the sins" when people can legally access abortion and marriage equality.

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