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   From: nowomr@protonmail.com   
      
   Pat Robertson, Televangelist Who Blamed Gay People for 9/11 and Hurricanes,   
   Dies   
      
   The conspiratorial hatemonger who founded the Christian Broadcasting Network   
   helped usher Christian-conservatism into the mainstream   
   June 8, 2023   
      
      
      
   Pat Robertson, the televangelist who ran for the Republican presidential   
   nomination in 1988, died on Thursday at age 93. The Christian Broadcasting   
   Network, which Robertson founded in 1960, announced the news Thursday   
   morning.   
      
   Robertson is widely credited with ushering Christian-conservatism into   
   mainstream politics in the 1980s and 1990s, and laying the groundwork for the   
   modern right-wing culture war. He has a history of extreme, bigoted   
   commentary — including that gay people and abortion caused 9/11, that   
   Haitians deserved the 2010 earthquake that ravaged the island nation, and   
   that feminists are evil.   
      
   The 700 Club, Robertson’s long-running program on the CBN, was his most   
   common platform for hate. In the days after 9/11, he brought on pastor Jerry   
   Falwell to discuss the tragedy. “I really believe that the pagans, and the   
   abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are   
   actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for   
   the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America, I point   
   the finger in their face and say, ‘You helped this happen,'” Falwell said, to   
   which Robertson said “I totally concur” and that the “agenda” has been   
   adopted by the “highest levels of our government.”   
      
      
   Robertson’s bigotry toward gay people was boundless. He said on The 700 Club   
   that he wished Facebook had a “vomit button” for when he came across a   
   picture of gay people kissing, equated gay people with Nazis and Satanists,   
   and suggested God unleashed hurricanes and other natural disasters as   
   punishment for homosexuality. “I would warn Orlando that you’re right in the   
   way of some serious hurricanes, and I don’t think I’d be waving those flags   
   in God’s face if I were you,” he said of Disney World’s Gay Days. “It’ll   
   bring about terrorist bombs; it’ll bring earthquakes, tornadoes, and possibly   
   a meteor.”   
      
   Robertson was very much an active participant in the modern, far-right   
   Christian conservatism he helped create. He supported Donald Trump in 2016   
   and 2020, and described those trying to stop him from doing so as “revolting   
   against what God’s plan is for America.” After a gunman killed 60 people in   
   Las Vegas in 2017, Robertson blamed “disrespect” for Trump. Robertson broke   
   from the former president after the 2020 election, however, saying Trump   
   needed to “move on” from the loss and that it would be “a mistake” for him to   
   run again in 2024.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)