On an episode of the 700 Club, a mother called in to ask how to handle having a gay son. Host Pat Robertson responded by declaring that “most” homosexuals are now same-sex attracted because of a previous abusive relationship, and that they are all on the path to hell.
Transcription of the clip, courtesy of Right Wing Watch:
TERRY MEEUWSEN (co-host): This is Theresa. This is difficult. She says, “How should we, as parents of a homosexual son, handle the ongoing challenges facing us, such as staying true to our faith and following the commandment to ‘love your neighbor as yourself’? This is very difficult for us.”
ROBERTSON: Well, first of all, he’s not your neighbor. He’s your son; that’s a different thing. You owe him, you know, advice and counsel and guidance. You’re his parent. First of all, you didn’t say how old he is. Secondly, I am not at all persuaded that so-called homosexuals are homosexuals because of biological problems. There may be a very few, but there are so many that have been made homosexuals because of a coach or a guidance counselor or some other male figure who has abused them and they think there’s something wrong with their sexuality. So you need to get deep into why he is what he is, instead of just saying, “Well, he’s a homosexual so how do I handle him, and how do I be Christian?” Well, I think you ought to tell him, “Listen, son, you know, here’s what the Bible says about this, and it’s called an abomination before God, so I’ve got to tell you the truth because I love you.” That’s what I think. All right, what else?
MEEUWSEN: And then you do that — you love him.
ROBERTSON: You love him. Of course you love him. And you accept him. You love him, but at the same time, you can’t let him just go, you know, he’ll wind up —
MEEUWSEN: Without knowing truth, yeah.
ROBERTSON: Well, I mean, if somebody’s on their way to hell, they’ll — I mean, you’ve got to love them to rescue them.
Hat Tip: Right Wing Watch
Abused by a “coach” a “guidance counselor”
I love how he skips over the “priest” the “Youth pastor”.
Whatever, he’s so old school.
Great, now I’m gonna have Hank Williams Jr’s “Whiskey-Bent and Hellbound” stuck in my head all evening.
Seriously, I’m surprised anyone would write Robertson asking for real advice of any kind. I’m hoping it’s made up. (I wouldn’t put it past his staff.) Of course, some people really are that stupid, and Robertson never lets the fact that he doesn’t know what he’s talking about stop him.
Whenever I hear Pat Robertson’s name or see his face, I am reminded of his treasonous rant with Jerry Fallwell about how America deserved the destruction of 9/11, because it was too liberal, didn’t reign in the rights of women enough and was too tolerant of gays. This being said while rescue workers were still pulling bodies out of the rubble of the Pentagon and the Twin Towers. People get angry when folks like Robertson are called the American Taliban. Yet on that very day, he and the hijackers seemed to have the same goals for this country and the same grievances against this country.
Why anyone would take is advice for how best to potty train their dog, let alone something as important as a parent-child relationship, is beyond me.
I posted this on BTB. I hope it is OK to post this here as well.
Sorry, I got a rant going. On my irony horse. I do have a point to my seeming digressionary essay. You just have to wait until the end.
Back when I was fighting against the Briggs Initiative, long ago in a galaxy far, far away– I spent a week of my precious grad school time researching the issue of child sexual abuse. The figures 30 years ago and now are remarkably consistent. 97% of the perps are men, though this has been disputed and could be as low as 90%. As much as 30% of the children that are molested are boys, though the figure was 10% in 1978, but thought to be higher. This is, quite ironically, the only place where homophobia might actually serve a higher purpose, because I suspect that one of the reasons boys are less likely victims is because pedophilic men don’t want to think of themselves as… wait for it…
GAY!
That is really worse, you know. It is the opposite side of the coin–double points for extra rich irony here– from the anti-gay idea that men who molest boys are ipso facto homosexual, but men who molest girls are ipso facto NOT HETEROSEXUAL. They are instead called child molesters. And that allows them to say that 3% of the child molesting men (the “”””gay”””” ones) are causing 30 times the problems, or some such utter fabrication.
The continue on in my original thoughts: It was true 30 years ago, and seems to be true now, that 50% of all child molestation, male and female, is done by the father, step-father, or father surrogate– men who identify as Heterosexual in terms of their interests and experience. (I’ve known only two men in my life who said that they had been molested as children, and in both cases, it was by their FATHERS.)
(Quick digression. One was raped REPEATEDLY by HIS FATHER because my friend was a sissy and his FATHER wanted to teach him a lesson about how being a faggot is bad and this is what happens to queer boys. It didn’t make him not gay, not that it was intended to, but it did mess him up and made him absolutely hate his father, though eventually, he got over both.)
Another 25 to 30% is done by a family member, or by a friend of the family, such as a Catholic Priest, or an Evangelical Youth Pastor. (See JoeMyGod for a weekly listing of their wacky antics. I wish he ad a similar blog for the BSA). And do you know why? In a word: ACCESS. That’s why pedophile priests and scoutmasters molest more boys than girls: not because they are gay, but because they have BETTER access. Those who get their kicks with adolescent boys are doing so because of a) access and b) they never grew up, and c) they don’t want to be gay, this doesn’t really count, no one will find out, or even suspect, because the kid is just as ashamed of being a victim and being perceived as weak, or being gay, as the perps are, even if the perps are actually heterosexual or just your garden-variety fixated pedophile.
The BSA does not allow gay Scoutmasters, or gay anything, lest their hetero cred be questioned. I suspect they prefer married men since they have their Thoroughly Heterosexual Certificates. But they also acknowledge a problem with adults and The Boys. So who is doing the molesting, then, but men who would most likely identify as heterosexual in terms of their interests and experience? And who is enabling the problem? Like with the Church, the Administration.
I worked for them in 1974. The homophobia stunk like a mildewed canvas tent. And yet gay people are the problem. Sounds to me like someone is just trying to protect their turf, possibly from perceived poachers, or just projecting. As Jason rightly points out, an out gay man is not very likely to be a molester, partly because of the self-examination that the coming out process requires and which heterosexuals do not much have any experience of, and partly because we are very conscious of this bias, and prejudiced belief, and so would be very careful to avoid even the appearance of impropriety. I know I am very conscious of it around my nephew.
The irony keeps piling up like a set in Wall-e. The really sick part of Patty’s diatribe is that he is identifying the alleged result of the abuse as a problem, and does not seem to be all the concerned about the perps, themselves victims, or something. And of course, as other have pointed out, it defies all logic, common sense, or a world more expansive than can be seen from the inside of his rectum.
Let’s return to the question: Why is it that a man who molests boys is called homosexual, but a man who molests girls– about 80% of all molestations– is called a child molester, and not heterosexual? Here we are coming to the meat of Patty’s statement that gay people are made gay because they were molested. See, they’re after your children, and they will make your children just like them, the worst of the worst, the child molesters. And gay, if you need some extra icing on that particular cake. And, even if this bald-faced lie WERE true, you could continue to believe that it was done by some stranger, some HOMOSEXUAL STRANGER, rather than the far more likely culprit, especially if the child is a boy and the family member someone who does not identify as gay, like your Thoroughly Heterosexual Husband. Or a man who claims he is a man of god, as though G is so sloppy that he grants the charisma of a vocation to men whom he knows will have their hands in a boy’s crotch.
Subtext is everything. How can you say “I HATE QUEERS” without actually having to say “I HATE QUEERS”?
Because if gay people are the problem, heterosexuals and conservatives and right-wing Christians and village idiots don’t have to question any of their assumptions, religious, social, or political, or sexual– especially sexual, because that scares the living bejeesus out of them–don’t have to actually solve a problem, don’t have to look in the logs in their own eyes, can continue to use The Children (TM) as pawns in their fear-based culture war, and all the more effective if your goal is power and/or money and/or eternal glory while you’re washing, swimming or backstroking in the Blood of the Lamb. What better way to ingratiate yourself with your concept of The Almighty One than to hate exactly what you have convinced yourself that he hates?
Can you say scapegoat? Becuase that to me is the final irony. The innocents and the minority are the scapegoat for the sins of the majority and the guilty. How could a right-wing, literalist, bible-believing Christian like Patty not get a bang out of that?
Most gay people I know were not abused in their youth. Those I do know of were abused by their Priests, Pastor or Sunday School Teacher.
The Spitzer study that ex-gays loves so much was very strong on the point that gay men don’t have a history of being sexually abused.