NEW YORK – GLAAD, the world’s largest LGBTQ media advocacy organization, denounced President Donald Trump’s one-on-one interview with Pat Robertson, a longtime anti-LGBTQ activist and Televangelist. The interview airs today at 10:00 AM on the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN). Robertson is infamous for calling for so-called “religious exemptions” to push a dangerous anti-LGBTQ agenda, accusing LGBTQ people of deliberately spreading HIV and AIDS, supporting so-called “conversion therapy,” and comparing the LGBTQ community to Satanists as well as thieves, rapists, and murders.
GLAAD compiled some of his many anti-LGBTQ attacks below and will be sharing them on GLAAD’s official twitter during the interview.
“Today’s interview with anti-LGBTQ activist Pat Robertson should be the last straw for anyone leaving hope that President Trump would be an ally to LGBTQ people,” said Sarah Kate Ellis, President and CEO of GLAAD. “Trump refused to speak out about LGBTQ Pride Month or against the atrocities facing gay men in Chechnya in favor of today using the office of the President to give credibility to a debunked TV personality with a long history of peddling vile inaccuracies and salacious insults that harm LGBTQ people. As anti-LGBTQ activists like Robertson get the red-carpet treatment at the White House, LGBTQ people must stay visible and fight back against all those seeking to erase our hard-fought progress.”
The CBN anchor also previously defended the widely panned Access Hollywood “Trump Tapes,” where President Trump bragged about committing sexual assault on women. Robertson said Trump was merely trying “to look like he’s macho,” further pushing the dangerous implication that groping women is a positive and normal way for men to elevate their masculinity.
This week’s interview comes at the same time as Attorney General Jeff Sessions delivered remarks at a closed-door summit on “religious liberty” hosted by Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF). The ADF is labeled a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center and is currently representing Jack Phillips in the Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission case, which argues whether someone could use so-called “religious exemptions” to discriminate against LGBTQ people. The United States Supreme Court will hear oral arguments for the case later on this fall.
BACKGROUND INFORMATION: Pat Robertson’s Anti-LGBTQ Activist Record
January 2016 — Warned a parent that youth could get “wrapped up in the gay lifestyle” without parental intervention.
May 2014 – Said on Christian acceptance of LGBT people: “You want to be loving and warm and let them know that you love them, BUT you cannot accept it and you cannot be an enabler. If they’re living together as a homosexual and you’re a Christian you cannot say I accept this lifestyle. Right now there’s an incredible barrage of activity forcing people to accept the homosexual lifestyle. Well, do we accept adultery? Do we accept fornication? Do we accept immorality? Well, the answer is no. I don’t think we ought to be accepting of it.”
February 2014 — Equated homosexuality with murder, lying, disobedience: “God knows your sin. Some of you have been involved in homosexuality, some of you have had an abortion, some of you have actually committed murder, you have lied, you have been disobedient to your parents, you have stolen money from your business, and God says if your repent and come to me I’ll wash the slate clean, you can get rid of it all.”
July 2013 — Claimed that many gay people “are into this homosexual thing because they’ve been abused by a parent, abused by a coach, abused by a sibling, abused by a friend, they’re little boys and little girls and they don’t know any better and then they somehow think, ‘well I must be gay,’ they aren’t they are heterosexual and they just need to come out of that.”
May 2013 — Compared gay people (and their supposed ability to “change”) to thieves, rapists, and murderers: “It is a hate crime to say somebody can change their sexual preference? … Anybody who has ministered to thousands of people…know very well that the power of God can change people’s orientation. A murderer can change. A rapist can change. A thief can change. That’s what the Gospel is about. It’s not a hate crime.”
December 2012 — Said deceased generals are rolling over in their graves because of the gay-inclusive military.
May 2012 — Claimed gay marriages “don’t ‘bring forth anything except disease and suffering.”
May 2012 — Claimed “so many people who are in the so-called homosexual lifestyle found that some camp counselor, some coach, some older person, older teenager or whatever, had started them on the road to homosexuality”; prays they will be freed from the “so-called homosexual lifestyle.
March 2012 — Advised to the sister of a lesbian: “You say, ‘should I go to my sister’s wedding, should I participate,’ the answer is to tell your sister, ‘I love you but I cannot participate a ceremony that is contrary to God’s word, period.’ If she doesn’t like it, if that breaks the union between you, that’s tough luck.”
December 2011 — Predicted after Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made a speech to the U.N encouraging dignity for LGBTQ people abroad: “You know, there is a God in heaven and He is just. Thomas Jefferson, ‘I tremble when I remember that God is just.’ He is just, he is not going to allow this kind of thing to go on forever. This country cannot continue to violate God’s principles and to make a mockery of His laws and think we’re going to get away with it. And when the blow comes, it’s going to be horrible.”
December 2011 — Told a father of a gay son that he should encourage “ex-gay” therapy, instructing that “normally speaking, a person who has acquired this can un-acquire it.” (:53-:59)
February 2011 – Said of LGBT rights groups: “Some of these radical gay groups are willing to do anything in the world to have their way of doing sex legitimized by this country. They’ll tear down any institution, the church — the Episcopal Church, for example — in order to have their way, and it’s basically wrong.” (:53-1:14)
June 2011 — Said on The 700 Club: “I think we need to remember the term sodomy came from a town known as Sodom and Sodom was destroyed by God Almighty and the thing that they practiced was homosexual activity and even they tried to rape angels who came down there, so that’s the kind of people they were. But beyond that, Jesus when He spoke of Sodom He didn’t say anything about the homosexuality he talked about just the fact that business was as usual until God decided to destroy it. And He sent an angel down there and He said to Lot and his family, ‘get out now because I’m gonna destroy this whole area.’ That’s where sodomy came from, we use the term sodomy and it means Sodom. What’s it like? We’re heading that way as a nation. In history there’s never been a civilization ever in history that has embraced homosexuality and turned away from traditional fidelity, traditional marriage, traditional child-rearing, and has survived. There isn’t one single civilization that has survived that openly embraced homosexuality. So you say, “What’s going to happen to America?” Well if history is any guide, the same thing’s going to happen to us. We’re on a slippery slope and it’s going to kick over in a hurry. We’re looking at financial problems of huge magnitude…. I think we need all of God’s help we can get. I don’t think we’re exactly setting ourselves up for his favor.” (12:59-15:01)
August 2010 — Claimed HIV+ gay people in San Francisco and other cities use special rings to cut and transmit the virus to others.
October 2009 — Said: “I don’t really believe homosexuals want to get married, what they want to do is destroy marriage and some of the other things we have in our society.” (:00-:08)
January 1993 — Compared gay people with Satanists and tried to link gay people to Adolf Hitler: “Many of those people involved with Adolph Hitler were Satanists, many of them were homosexuals. The two things seem to go together.”
August 1992 – Said on feminism: “Feminism is a socialist, anti-family, political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians.”
ALSO – Provided this advice to the friend of a prospective gay parent: “I know about what happened when a young man was taken away from his Christian mother by a court and given to his homosexual father. And the next thing you know, that guy was a flaming homosexual, and if I’m not mistaken, he contracted AIDS….To take on somebody else’s child is difficult enough, but to do so in a homosexual environment where the contacts that the man is going to be having — his various male lovers coming in, and this youngster’s going to be exposed to all that? The answer is: this would be a terrible environment. So if there’s any way you can do it subtlety say, `Look, Jesus loves you, but I think right now we ought to get you straightened out before you start taking on some other responsibility.’ A life of a child is very significant, and that won’t be a help for him.”
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