Demonizing Gets The Robertson Treatment: The Great Senile Spirit Rejuvenates Gay Exorcism!

The Great Senile Spirit Has Spoken. Pat Robertson has taken an ex-gay/born-again odyssey and crafted a story of demonic possession. Over two years ago, Pat Robertson's mental capacity was questioned when he posited that disaster-stricken Haiti had signed a pact with the devil. He has, of course, come out with similar pronouncements leading both sides of the culture to dismiss him as senile.* So it should come as no surprise that his latest revelation - that homosexuality is really the result of demonic possession - has been met with a certain amount of amusement.


But some people aren't laughing.


Of course, Robertson has his die-hard fans, that group of elderly living in nursing homes, touching their screens when Pat is on, hoping he'll cure them of their hemorrhoids. His demonizing of gays to this group is almost meaningless since most of them don't have the strength or wherewithal to wield a baseball bat or pull a trigger. But it's the rest of his outer circle, the ones who enable bullying in schools, the ones who need to believe in a "homosexual agenda", the ones who actively follow the likes of Bryan Fischer and Lou Engle - they are the ones from whom we must suffer silence in fear of lives.


Demonizing in America has become a sport at which certain people have become incredibly adept and truly bold: the ones who eschew the machinations of Fred Phelps support and embellish the homophobia of Rick Santorum and Rick Perry. Tony Perkins remonstrates against dreaded "homosexual activists" almost weekly on MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews. The American Family Association calls for boycotts against any retailers supporting gay rights (the latest, being Starbucks and JC Penney) because homosexuals are "destroying" the American family.**


"Spirit of Death"


Perhaps the most harmful thing about Robertson's latest ruminations is that he uses a black "ex-gay" man to tell his story about how his "addiction" brought out misery for his family and how he was saved by "faith." The man's testimony seems harmless enough until he comes to equate his faith to the "Spirit of Life" and homosexuality to the "Spirit of Death." Yes, he actually uses those words, and in doing so becomes a fully adept demonizer on Robertson's program, enabling black ministers ala Eddie Long to preach against the "demon-possessed" gay lifestyle. The man also depicts his own life as simply one filled with deceit and online sexual hook-ups, a mass of guilt and devoid of any real affection to any of the men he experienced. In other words, homosexuality is just one mass of demonic lust.***

Enabler Of The Worst Sort


Of course, besides demonizing (literally) an entire community in one fell swoop, Robertson also became an exorcist-enabler. Horror stories abound concerning gay youth and even older men and lesbians being put through hell - often against their will - in order to "cast out" the demons driving their sexual urges and their orientation (see one below). He has became a staunch supporter of those people who for the sake of their own perversions of righteousness, torture to the point of irreparable psychological damage. He has become an enabler of Hell Houses and their "demonic" portrayal of same-sex weddings. He has even become an enabler of bullying, since most gay teens are taunted with "you're going to hell." 


It is unfortunate that throughout his barely lucid ramblings, Robertson keeps harping at what is "wrong" without stopping to think that what he is doing might be wrong. 


Such is the bliss of senility.  












* He has reversed his previous stance on marijuana, calling for its legalization, and setting off a chorus of WTF!?s across the nation's Bible Belt and beyond.
** As if it needed any impetus.
***Certainly sounds like partner material to me!

Marking 200 For OpEdNews: The Best of Times (Sex With Ducks), The Worst of Times (The Deaver Fetus)

I'm tired. If you want to feel the frenetic pace my writing life has been like, just click on this old Leroy Anderson tune of a typewriter and read along. It will set a light tone to some very heavy subjects (hey, that's my style!).* 

Marking 200? No, I'm not 200 years old, although sometimes I feel like it. And tabulating how much I've submitted to OpEdNews for the last 3 years makes me feel older: it's certainly not a prodigious output by any means, but my perspective is queer: it's not how much I put out, but how much I am able to fit in. In between things, that is: no, not a sob story, but one that compels me to relay it to OpEdNews readers because they've been a part of my life.

For the last 5 years, I've been a caregiver to a loved one who is terminally ill (liver cancer) and life has gone from week-to-week, to day-to-day. Now, it's kind of hour-to-hour. It's also cooking, cleaning, errands, hospital visits, prescription refills, doling out meds, travel planning, kitty care, and fending off labels like "angel" and "saint" (curses on the love life - saints and angels don't get laid.). Not that I'm complaining, but ...o.k., I'm complaining. Because amidst all of this I'm compelled to communicate to people news and views about the realms of religion and politics ... and everything in between.

Yeah, it's an addiction: first thing in the morning I scan google alerts (at least a dozen "men of the cloth" are arrested for various crimes each day), devour rss feeds, answer comments on the blog, and plan the new ministry. I eventually come up for coffee (not air), then I have a breakfast consisting of religious and political hypocrisies, then I uncover them, rant on them and laugh at them. (I have to laugh at them: I take to heart Mark Twain's dictum: "Against the assault of laughter, nothing can stand.") The rest of the day alternates between something mundane like changing the sheets and writing about the latest malapropisms of Michele Bachmann or the newest pronouncements of Benedict XVI.

Occasionally, I indulge myself with the luxury of our view of the ocean and the realization that I live in the most beautiful and compassionate place on earth (San Francisco).

IT'S ALL PERSPECTIVE

Times are getting bleaker and there's w-a-a-ay too much to rant about: atrocities like The Deaver Fetus and David Kato's murder in Uganda infest my laptop screen like giant termites, making it harder to laugh. The viciousness of today's Christof*scism, the blatant bigotry of people like Bryan Fischer and the eviscerating evangelism of Lou Engle propose a future too dreadful to imagine. Turning them on their ears becomes less fun, hence more difficult to write about.

Oh, occasionally Pat Robertson comes up with a hoot, a statement so self-righteously inane that it wipes the brain clean of all seriousness,* but writing about senile musings is too easy and breezy: the psyche just starts to relax when up comes a horror worthy of Halloween: suddenly there is too little time to write about LGBT issues, Islamoph*bia or even Ann Coulter(geist). 

Then there's the outright ruthlessness of the newly invigorated Republican Party: I hope I don't drown in that tsunami of vengeance! It overwhelms humanity! Don't get me started.

BACK TO THE POINT

OpEdNews has been a godsend for writers like me: the chance to get a word in edgewise is coupled with an association of some of the brightest minds we have today. And knowing that some people out there are actually reading my rants helps me contend with all that's happening to me and to the rest of the world. So now I'm up to 200 articles (150,000 words. 300,000 page views). I may flag a bit in the future, but I'll never kick the addiction of writing about the Right Wing's religious world of hypocrisy or things like ...Sex with Ducks. 

*Sorry if you're too young to know what a typewriter sounds like

** The article that has garnered me the most page views is, ironically, the one about Pat Robertson's remarks about Haiti titled The Senility Defense: Pat Robertson's Trial In The Court Of Public Opinion. 

Pat Robertson: As Christians We Must Love ALL of God's Murderous Dictators - Even Laurent Gbagbo!

Time for another swing at a Senility Defense!

Since Pat didn't say anything about Japan's spirit-of-the-anti-Christ religions causing earthquakes or the tsunami, I figured he had lost his mojo in the God's Ambulance Chasers' department. Last January, when the "snowpocalypse" hit the country and stopped dead all air travel, Robertson chimed with his explanation that it was "God's way of preventing gays from doing something gay." So I thought that Japan's disasters were a natural. I waited and waited in vain.


Hooray! He may not have come through with Japan, but he certainly was right on target with the conflict in Cote d-Ivoire! That's my man!


The Conflict


It is unfortunate that the African nation, Cote d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast), sounds so much more romantic than it really is. Like a beautiful stage set, the country's name fronts squalor and corruption, horrendous hypocrisy and  egotism.


Perhaps that's why Pat Robertson likes it.


The government of Cote d'Ivoire has caught the same democracy virus that it's northern African neighbors have and the tension is, to say the least, high.

The finale of Gbagbo's 10-year claim on Ivory Coast is playing out much like the beginning. The 65-year-old strongman, who made an art of staying in power years past the end of his legal mandate, is now pushing the envelope, fighting for each day, even each hour.

That was several hours ago. By now, however, Pat Robertson and Gbagbo's supporters here in the U.S. have heard that Gbagbo has been negotiating his surrender, talking about security with U.N. and French forces. The new President, Alassane Ouattara, is also anxious about his security. Gbagbo has a reputation - made ever more evident at the number of civilians killed during the last days of unrest.* But this is a reputation Pat Robertson choses to ignore.

Watch below how Robertson spins his way through the murky waters of despotism, trashes Muslims (Africa will have a "Ring of Sharia Law"), the French, the MSM and calls Gbago a good Christian man. Pat's never better when he's at his most senile. Notice too, how the station gets in a dig at Obama by positioning the announcement of his 2012 candidacy immediately afterward. 


The Ties That Bind - To The Christian Right

Gbagbo, along with his influential wife, Simone, are evangelical Christians who are known for lacing their speeches with religious rhetoric. "God is leading our fight. God has already given us the victory," Simone Gbagbo, who is both first lady and politician in her own right, said at a rally in January. Both Gbagbos have attended the National Prayer Breakfast, a big annual Washington event run by the secretive Christian group known as the Family, or the Fellowship.

Friends of Gbagbo include Senator Jim Inhofe, Doug Coe (leader of C Street and the secretive Fellowship), broadcaster Glenn Beck and ... Pat Robertson. In demeanor and purpose, the impoverished African country looks a lot like Uganda and one wonders just how many evangelicals have been visiting it in order to secure the nation "for God." Case in point: while homosexuality is legal in Cote d'Ivoire, gays have no protections against discrimination. Lou Engle still considers it  fertile ground for The Call.


Testing The Limits Of Compassion


While rummaging around for stuff on Cote d'Ivoire, I got a bit of a shock. The picture of a church and its description overwhelmed me with the blatant world of religious despotism: The Basilica of Our Lady Of Peace.


According to wikipedia, the basilica was built to be reminiscent St. Peter's in Rome, but according to Guinness World Records, it surpasses it in size, becoming THE largest church in the world. It cost $300 million in 1989. It was also built to fit the ego of its then-president  Félix Houphouët-Boigny who:

commissioned a stained glass window of his image to be placed beside a gallery of stained glass of Jesus and the apostles. This image depicts him as one of the three Biblical Magi, kneeling as he offers a gift to Jesus.

The average wage of a day laborer in Cote d'Ivoire is $1.25. Pope John Paul II (who dedicated the church) was probably too awed by the church itself to realize what a mockery it was to the people of the country. The video below is a stark revelation that does not  dare to shock the viewer by presenting the squalor amongst such magnificence. The imagination does that. 


Back To Sanity


So what Pat Robertson sees as a tragedy is really the toppling of another despot to instate the rightfully voted-in President. That new President happens to be Muslim. Some Christians in Cote d'Ivoire may have actually voted for him. If the new president, Alassane Ouattara, ushers in any form of peace, with even the slightest hint of prosperity, Robertson, Coe, Beck, Inhofe, Warren and all the Christian Right moguls pinning their hopes on making Cote d'Ivoire a Uganda-like "Purpose-Driven" nation, will have lost their footing on Africa. 


Cheer up, Pat, there's always the senility defense!


*massacres of whole villages have been reported





The Basilica of Our Lady of Peace of Yamoussoukro: a monument to despotism - the most incredibly atrocious display of monumental ego.  Félix Houphouët-Boigny