Image Credit: Reuters/Joshua Roberts
New York, June 10 (RHC)-- Observers say the death of longtime televangelist Pat Robertson is "no major loss to the world." The racist, right-wing ideologue died earlier this week at the age of 93.
In 1960, Robertson created the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) and for decades used its flagship program, “The 700 Club,” as a platform for homophobia, religious bigotry and racist hate speech.
In 1988, Robertson ran for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination, taking second place in the Iowa caucus. Robertson’s strong performance cemented the Christian Coalition he founded as a major force within the Republican Party.
In 2001, Robertson blamed liberals, feminists and gay people for the 9/11 attacks. He once claimed AIDS was “God’s way of weeding his garden.”
Robertson also raised funds for Contra death squads in Nicaragua, operating against the Sandinista Revolution, and publicly called for the assassination of world leaders including Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi and Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez.
In the mid-1990s, during the Rwandan genocide, Robertson appealed to his audience for money to fly relief supplies to Rwandan refugees in Zaire — now the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Instead of carrying humanitarian aid, planes bought by Robertson’s charity mostly transported equipment for a diamond mining operation.
