Only the Beginning of Sorrows

Pat Robertson and Haiti: Demented demonology
By Star-Ledger Editorial Board/The Star-Leder

Televangelist Pat Robertson sounded like a demented old fool when he said the devastating earthquake in Haiti is God’s wrath for a "pact" Haitians made with the devil to gain independence from the French.

"They were under the heel of the French. You know, Napoleon the third, or whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil," Robertson said Wednesday on the Christian Broadcasting Network’s 700 Club.

Insensitive and stupid as it was, this is hardly the first time Robertson has spewed such ridiculous apocalyptic revelations.

He told the Pennsylvania town of Dover in 2005 that disaster might strike there because its citizens voted out school board members who favored teaching intelligent design over the theory of evolution. That same year, he said Hurricane Katrina was sent by God as a punishment for America’s legalization of abortion.

Robertson’s babble is not to be confused with real religious philosophy. He’s nothing more than a nut job peddling an extreme right-wing world view.