It's Past Time For Pat Robertson to Retire

When I was 8 years old, my dad and I went to a live taping of The 700 Club.  It's a Christian-based television show, most well-known for its host Pat Robertson.  I had a lot of respect for him during my childhood because of his notoriety, but as I got older I paid less and less attention to him.

To this day Robertson still tapes episodes of The 700 Club at the age of 83.  Frankly I'm surprised he's still chugging along and able to keep up with the hectic demands of such a schedule, but he somehow is able to push himself.  Over the last few years he's had his share of moments where he's shown signs of losing touch with the rest of society, like when he claimed Twilight was demonic in nature.

Before I get to my point - and you may already know where this is going ultimately - I have a few words regarding his thoughts on Twilight.  First, I think Twilight is insipidly stupid and immature in nature.  I may not be part of the target audience, but when you strip away all the supernatural elements of the series, it boils down to a childish love triangle where a teenage girl manipulates two guys into falling in love with her.  It's just really, really dumb.

Anyway, just because Twilight features vampires and werewolves does not automatically translate to it being demonic, which Robertson claimed it did.  He sounded like a man who had no knowledge of what Twilight was at all except that it involved vampires and werewolves.  His position fit completely within the stereotype of Christians being out of touch with what goes on in modern media today.

As minor as those comments were, they would be dumb enough.  But no, Pat Robertson chose to open his mouth once again to another viewer question last week.  A woman found out her husband had been having an affair and asked Robertson what she should do in terms of choosing between forgiving him and taking him back, or walking away completely.

I've known many women who have had to deal with infidelity in their past relationships, both married women and unmarried women.  It's heartbreaking regardless of whether there's a ring on the finger or not, and it's also something that I personally would have a difficult time with accepting it and forgiving my girlfriend if she ever cheated on me.  My position has always been that cheating would be an absolute deal breaker, but that's an easy thing to say and much more difficult choice to simply walk away.

The key is the underlying point that Robertson said in his response to the question: He said it's on the woman's shoulders to make the relationship so wonderful and happy, that the man would never think to cheat on her.  Exactly how is that fair to a woman in a relationship?  In such a slanted situation, the man would essentially have the right to dominate the relationship and put minimal effort in making his wife happy because he's so susceptible to outside influences.  

I'm absolutely horrified at the implications of his response.  No relationship - married or otherwise - should depend solely on the efforts of the woman to make her man happy.  That's insulting to both men and woman on far too many levels to talk about here.  Men apparently are incapable of resisting temptation in his mind, so we're reduced to a bunch of horny cavemen, leaving women to bear the responsibilities of homemaker, mother, cook, baker, cleaner, and lover.  

I also find it shockingly disturbing that Robertson's female co-host didn't jump in at any moment to point out the lunacy of his remarks.  If she thought he was nuts for making such statements, why didn't she speak up and be his counterpoint?  Her blood had to be boiling at the notion that Robertson expected her to be a human welcome mat for the man in her life.  Unless she had been brainwashed into buying into Robertson's ideas, she had to have been biting her tongue to prevent herself from jumping in the conversation.

There's also the question of why the viewer even asked Robertson in the first place.  Why not find a Christian marriage counselor close to home to advise her?  How could a one minute answer from Pat Robertson possibly address this woman's issues and needs adequately?  For that matter, why not advise her to seek out a Christian marriage counselor in her area?  Her original question was not so much about how to prevent her husband from cheating on her, but to decide on whether she should even take him back in the first place.  Robertson didn't even properly answer her question.

Many non-Christian friends of mine love to cite cases like Pat Robertson as reasons why they don't like evangelical Christians on the whole.  I don't blame them.  I don't like being associated even tangentially with the likes of Robertson, Jerry Falwell (even though he's been deceased for several years), or Ted Haggard because of the arrogant and sometimes hypocritical statements they make.  The sad reality is they have millions of followers nationwide who have watched them and read their books over the course of decades, and their followers will in many cases follow them blindly.

Of course, maybe it's the fault of the sheep who follow misguided (or worse) talking heads who offer the kind of offensive "advice" that Robertson gives.  They don't stop to think about how or why Pat Robertson (or someone similar to him) is even relevant now.  I don't doubt that Robertson has some great insight when it comes to marriage, considering he's been with his wife for nearly 60 years.  He has worked on staying in the limelight for much longer than he should have been, and he should have walked away into retirement years ago.