Here’s the LA Times take on it. There is also a YouTube video:
So, Mr. Christian says that it’s OK for Dad to divorce Mom because she has Alzheimer’s. Would he give the same advice to Mom if Dad had Alzhiemer’s?
Maybe Robertson should just be Pitted again for the umpteenth time but I’m thinking that the topic may be worthy of debate.
Disclaimer: The whole issue hits close to home.
Somehow, I doubt that Mom would be advised to divorce Dad. Because that’s woman’s burden, you know.
I do think that if you believe in the sanctity of marriage, and that it’s supposed to be “til death do you part”, that means that you can’t just divorce someone because s/he becomes mentally or physically incapacitated. It’s one thing to divorce someone because s/he’s cheating, or is somehow being dishonest in the marriage. It’s quite another thing to divorce someone because life has happened to him/her.
As it happens, my mother has a pretty advanced case of Alzheimer’s. My father hasn’t even thought of divorcing her. I know that he’s not very observant, but he was raised Catholic, and I was always taught that marriage is for life.
You do not have to be religious to think that marriage is for life.
Ugh. The Pat Robertson’s of the world drive me bonkers.
Once again, I blame the care staff. The nurses, hair dressers and other medical professionals who keep this guy alive ought never to let him wander in front of TV cameras.
It’s been pretty obvious to those of us who have been through it for some years.
ETA: “Pat, have an ice tea and watch your stories. We’ll take care of it.”
Well yea, would he give the same advice to someone who’s wife was put into a coma due to an accident?
I don’t profess any religiosity. Yet, for someone who professes to be a fundamentalist Christian, his words seem very callous. Would he say the same thing about a deformed child who had no real knowledge of his parents? “Just make sure the being has food and water but otherwise separate yourself because your obligation has ended.” Maybe Robertson has made a very convincing argument for the abortion of deformed fetuses at any stage.
Again, this issue hits close to home and personally I am appalled, particularly since the POS presents himself a moral superior.
So, sanctity of marriage; let me see if I have this straight: Jesus never mentions one word about gays, yet we’re to keep them from joining together in holy matrimony. But despite the fact that He specifically tells us that divorce is a sin, it’s now okay to divorce your wife if she gets too sick?
As a Christian, let me apologize for this asshole, and stress that he doesn’t speak for all of us.
As a non-Christian I would like to join together with you and re-stress that Pat doesn’t speak for anyone but himself and the almight dollar. Pat is only a Christian because religion is his method of fleecing the unwary and Christianity is the largest religious group in America. Air drop him into the Middle East (please) and we would see him on TV telling us who to hate and where to send our checks while quoting the Koran.
As an almighty dollar, I would like to stress that Pat Robertson doesn’t speak for me either.
I hear you and somewhat agree, but I think William Saleten on Slate had a good article about it, and the issue of statements being taken out of context.
Maybe William Saletan is being nicer than he should, but I tend to agree with the point he raised in his article, I thought it was fair to PR to have the entirety of his comments laid out. It seemed from what PR actually said, that he is developing a little nuance to slow down the jerking of his knee.
Let’s encourage him to develop more nuance, not freak out when he actually does it. IMHO, YMMV. As Skald said in the Sarah Palin thread, let’s be better than that. (Though technically, I don’t know if Skald would appreciate me applying this to PR, who is generally a complete ass)
I would be very interested to see everyone who has posted above post again after reading Saleton’s article and address the points therein.
For myself, I contend that the Christian understanding of marriage cannot include divorce, so I still disagree with Pat.
Ok, I read it, and I still disagree with him. If he wants to be firm on what life is and say that abortion is murder, he can’t be flexible on what “death” is. If he does, he’s just making shit up as he goes along.
The Bible is clear on marriage: “What God has joined together, let no man put asunder.” To claim a loophole for someone who wants to skirt around on their desparetely sick spouse is disgusting and utter bullshit. To say that this wife is basically dead is moving the goalposts on what life is. If there’s a soul in an embryo, there’s a soul in a woman with Alzheimers.
Pat Robertson is hardly a spokesman for Christianity, he has made numerous false predictions among other things.
I still don’t think Robertson is right. Yes, he’s not ADVOCATING divorce, but he’s not really condoning it, either.
I think that the issue of “what if the partner is in a coma?” is a valid one. Yes, people HAVE come out of comas, and Alzheimer’s is different in that way…but still, someone who’s in a coma won’t recognize loved ones.
Nailed it.
Since you asked:
1.) I watched the video before I posted. I knew that there was a context that wouldn’t come through in the reporting of the comments.
2.) Remember, this is Pat Robertson, not Dr. Phil or Oprah. PR is a self-important, bigoted, self-serving, hypocritical, judgmental POS that will thump the Bible to justify any outrageous statement he wants to make. Anybody that would blame the events of 9/11 on gays and abortions is beneath contempt. People like him make my skin crawl.
3.) I think that Saletan in the Slate article got it all wrong and I vehemently disagree with his soft-peddling of the comments.
4.) PR can’t thump the Bible on this one. The Bible and the marriage vows that are repeated in every Christian religious marriage ceremony are pretty clear.
5.) I’m not condemning the man that is seeking companionship elsewhere while he has a wife that is lost to him. I’m not making a moral judgement on that issue. I am making a judgement on PR, his history and his comments. The man with the ill wife has to come to terms with himself. I’m not the judge.
So what does this come down to? If PR was the person he claim to be, an evangelical Christian that follows the Bible and is superior to the point of standing in moral judgement of others, then his comment totally expose his hypocrisy.
So what should he have said that would have prevented the firestorm? Here’s what he should have said (this is not necessarily what I would have said):
“You married the woman for better or for worse, in sickness and in health until death do you part. She can no longer provide you with the companionship and comfort you seek. That does not justify adultery. That also doesn’t mean that you can’t have friends, male or female. There is nothing wrong with a platonic relationship with a person of the opposite sex as long as there is no adultery.”
If he had said that I wouldn’t be typing. As it is, he exposed himself as a hypocrite who really doesn’t follow the Bible unless he can use it for his own agenda. It’s the picking and choosing of the Bible by the evangelists that makes me view them as a big problem.
Saletan points to context. However, the context isn’t in the comments, it’s in the context of Pat Robertson and who has pretended to be.
Ah, but there is research being done on Alzheimer’s (not enough) and there are some treatments that are in clinical trials that have shown promise. So what if somebody hits on the magic bullet? The wife gets better, her memory starts to recover and then finds out that she has been divorced? Yes, that a big “what if” but so is someone coming out of a coma after a long period of time.
Not all Christians think alike on divorce. And not all Christian wedding ceremonies use the same vows. My husband and I were married by a minister, but we wrote our own vows. The minister wrote what he wanted to say.
I don’t think that it would be unChristian for my husband to have a loving and intimate relationship or even a marriage with someone else if I had Alzheimer’s Disease and did not know him or make sense anymore. Sometimes Alzheimers patients who live in special care form loving relationships too. There is no disrespect intended. I would expect the healthy mate to continue to insure that the one with Alzheimer’s has good care and visitation. That’s the loving thing to do.
I’m not disagreeing with you. I know what you are talking about. A lot of times, especially with elderly men, they think that the female caregivers in the care facility are in love with them.
Still, as I said before, Robertson’s comments have to be taken in the context of Pat Robertson, the Bible thumping, self-appointed morally superior evangelist that he pretends to be.