Pat Robertson Hates Alzheimer's Patient Even More than He Hates Gay People

More Republican cruelty is on display today, as Pat Robertson — the Super Jesus All-Star Televangelist who was a 1988 Republican presidential candidate — advocated one man divorce his Alzheimer-stricken wife. It's an interesting concept. Marriage is an absolute sacrament, not to be taken lightly. In it, you vow to be together until death...or inconvenience? I forgot about Jesus' Sermon on the Hill, where he decided that political elites had their own set of rules about marriage and love and divorce. I must have missed that chapter in the Bible. (And yes, I've read it, cover to cover. (If you missed out, you'll love the contradictions!). But yes, there he is, Pat Robertson calling for this man to get a divorce. And his reasoning is as rock-solid as his head. "I know it sounds cruel, but if he's going to do something, he should divorce her and start all over again, but make sure she has custodial care and somebody looking after her," Robertson said. Yes, Pat, it looks cruel because it is cruel. His co-host, asked how he could square that belief with the Christian concept of marriage until death. "If you respect that vow, you say 'til death do us part,'" Robertson said during the Tuesday broadcast. "This is a kind of death." Not that this is moral ambiguity about their own marriages is really new for Republicans. Newt Gingrich, who doesn't really marry wives and mistresses so much as he leases them, is a big fan of the death bed splits. He once tried to get his wife (was it #1 or #2? It gets hard to keep track of.) to chat and sign divorce papers while she was in the hospital recovering from cancer surgery. I guess that might qualify for a kind of death, per Robertson's new-found criteria. David Vitter, the Republican Senator from Louisiana, has been in more prostitutes than Eddie Murphy, and he's still part of the (im)moral majority taking a firm stance against applying the Constitution to gay people, and gay people having committed, loving relationships. It's funny to hear Republicans talk about the importance of marriage and the sanctity of marriage, particularly in light of their unreasonable and bigoted opposition to gay marriage. I happen to know more than my fair share of gay, bisexual, and transgendered people, and a few of them are even married (legally, where possible). Their love and relationships are no more heroic and no less worthy than anything the heterosexual community can prop up. So it's funny to hear people like Pat Robertson call for the banning of gay marriages (to preserve the sanctity of marriage) while also calling for this guy to go ahead and divorce his wife because it's inconvenient to care for her. You can reach the author by email john@benzinga.com or on twitter @johndthorpe.