Evangelist Pat Robertson

Not everyone out there is familiar with Pat Robertson. He is best known as a television evangelist and for his long aired show, The 700 Club , which focuses on religious issues, specifically Christian ones. Mr. Robertson has more recently been discussed because of his odd and off the wall comments made on some very delicate subjects.

We all are painfully aware that our first amendment rights of speech can have consequences; just ask people like Rush Limbaugh what can happen when you choose to use words that upset large groups of people.

Unfortunately for Pat Robertson he has a long standing pattern of saying things that really aren’t appropriate and are certainly not very nice. I know that his comments are made out of his interpretations of the scriptures in the Bible, but some of the statements are way out in right field.

Being a man of religion it would be safe to assume that promoting violence would be the last thing that he would preach. Truth be told he has made comments almost recommending the assassination of leaders in foreign countries. Back in 2005 Robertson was quoted as saying “We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability”. The ‘we’ he was referring to was Hugo Chavez, the President of Venezuela. I’m not saying that Mr. Chavez is a Boy Scout or anything but suggesting that he be taken out seems a little bit inappropriate for an evangelist to say.

To be fair, Mr. Robertson did offer a clarification to his comment a few days later with this quote “Is it right to call for an assassination? No, and I apologize for that statement. I spoke in frustration that we should accommodate the man who thinks the U.S. is out to kill him”. Mr. Chavez feels like the U.S. is out to kill him? I wonder where he heard that, maybe by watching The 700 Club?

Not to be outdone Pat Robertson has also offered us his wisdom on the terror attacks of September 11, 2001 with fellow evangelist Jerry Falwell. Shortly after these heinous attacks both of these “gentlemen” took to the air to discuss who was to blame for the violence. Was it al-Qaeda? How about religious fanatics? Nope, they felt the ACLU was partially at fault here. Yep the American Civil Liberties Union should “take a lot of blame for this” was what Falwell said to which Robertson quickly agreed. Their rational was that God was mad about abortions being allowed in the U.S. They also felt that a finger should be pointed in the face of feminists, gays and lesbians because they “helped this happen”. I know quite a few homosexuals; I would have a difficult time envisioning them as violent, let alone hijacking planes to kill innocent people.

Continuing his anti-abortion banter, and blaming any bad thing that happens in this Country on our allowance of abortion, Mr. Robertson felt that Hurricane Katrina was another form of punishment for abortion because it was an issue in the Supreme Court nomination of John Roberts.

It is also hard to comprehend his “pact to the devil” comments after the tragic earthquake that leveled huge portions of Haiti in 2010. His implications that the area was somehow cursed were just plain odd.

Now Pat Robertson has ventured into the world of sports, specifically the National Football League with the signing of quarterback Peyton Manning by the Denver Broncos. The NFL might not be typically something comment worthy by Mr. Robertson but in this specific case he has made an exception.

The signing got under his skin because it led to the Broncos dealing quarterback Tim Tebow to the New York Jets. Trades happen all of the time in the NFL and professional sports in general but Tebow is not your typical player. Tebow’s religious views are well documented and he has an incredibly loyal fan following.

My assumption is that Mr. Robertson felt it was his duty to comment since a fellow Christian had been wronged by his employer? I’m not complaining that he made a comment but I disagree, strongly, with wishing that a player gets injured as some kind of sick and twisted way to punish the Broncos organization for moving Tebow.

Peyton Manning has recently struggled with a neck condition that kept him off of the field all of last season. Robertson’s opinion was that Tebow was treated “shabbily” by the Broncos. Seriously; he got traded it happens all of the time so get over it. It’s not like the Broncos came up with a bad name for him or fined him for doing something silly on his own time. Professional football is a business. The Broncos felt they had a better chance with Manning than they did with Tebow so he was traded.

Robertson’s quote was completely out of line because it sounded like he was almost hoping (or maybe praying) for Manning to get hurt. The quote was “So Peyton Manning was a tremendous MVP quarterback, but he’s been injured. If that injury comes back, Denver will find itself without a quarterback. And in my opinion, it would serve them right.” Serve them right because they dealt a quarterback that you share religious views with?

Personally I don’t care what religion a player has as long as he is doing his job. We always hear about the people who are concerned about the separation of church and state. Me, I would ensure that we maintain a separation of church and sports. If a player wants to thank God for his or her talent, that is fine with me. Hoping that an injury occurs because a team deserves it is a joke and Pat Robertson should really learn how to refrain from making such poor comments.