Televangelist Pat Robertson on Monday
warned viewers of The 700 Club that gay marriage will bring
the wrath of God.
The 81-year-old Christian conservative
made his remarks after a segment on New York becoming the sixth –
and most populous – state to legalize marriage for gay and lesbian
couples.
“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,” Robertson said. “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.”
Theologians, however, are not uniformly
in agreement that the sin of Sodom was homosexuality. Many, if not
most, explain that Sodom's sin was instead neglect of needy
travelers.
“It's not a pretty world we live in
right now,” Robertson added, “and we need all of God's help we
can get. And I don't think we are not exactly setting ourselves up
for his favor.” (The video is embedded in the right panel of this
page.)