Televangelist and former Republican presidential candidate Pat Robertson has blamed the novel coronavirus on same-sex marriage.
Robertson, the host of the long-running evangelical Christian program 700 Club, is notorious for blaming LGBTQ people for natural disasters and weather phenomena.
Related: Pat Robertson says there will be ‘atomic war’ if Christians can’t discriminate against LGBTQ people
Co-host Terry Meeuwsen read a question from a viewer to Robertson about the pandemic.
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“This is John, Pat, who says, ‘Pat, last week you were talking about COVID-19. You quoted Chronicles 7:14. How can God heal our land and forgive the sins when abortion and same-sex marriage are laws and many people are anti-Israel. Doesn’t this prevent his healing and forgiveness?'” Meeuwsen read.
“You know,” Robertson replied. “I think you put your finger on something very important. You know the Bible says — they turn from their wicked ways. They didn’t get forgiven. They will turn from their wicked ways. And part of what we’ve done is turn. We are not turning when we have done terrible things. We have broken the covenant that God made with the mankind. We have violated his covenant.”
This isn’t the first time he’s has blamed an act of God on LGBTQ people. In 1998, he said that accepting gay people could result in hurricanes, earthquakes, tornadoes, and “possibly a meteor.”
In 2018, he said that passing a ban on discrimination against LGBTQ people could result in “atomic war.”
“We don’t want that,” he said. “We want the blessing of God, not the curse of God.”
And just last year, he said that drag queen story hours means that what humanity is doing is “trying to do is stick our fingers in God’s eyes.”
“This was the original crime that led to the destruction of Sodom and Gommorah, and the United States of America is on very slippery ground,” he said. “How is God going to bless America if we put our finger in his eyes repeatedly? And that’s what we’re doing. It’s not just some library that is going to be in trouble, it’s the whole population when God brings judgment.”
Christians blaming LGBTQ people for natural disasters has a sordid history than spans centuries.
Rome’s Justinian Code, published under one of the first Christian emperors, declared that “For because of such crimes [as men engaging in same-sex relations], there are famines, earthquakes, and pestilences…. If, with eyes as if were blinded, we overlook such impious and forbidden conduct, we may provoke the good God to anger and bring ruin upon all.”
