Robertson made the statement during the portion of the show where he takes questions. One viewer explained that his friend began seeing another woman after his wife started suffering the effects of Alzheimer’s. The viewer asked Robertson for advice on how to approach his friend about the situation.
“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 replied.
Viewers across the country admitted to being shocked by the comment. Most Christian denominations discourage divorce, citing the Gospel of Mark where Jesus equates divorce and remarriage with adultery.
Even Robertson’s co-host, Terry Meeuwsen, asked for clarification in light of marriage vows that commit couples to taking care of one another “for better or for worse” and “in sickness and in health.”
Robertson responded by saying, “If you respect that vow, you say ‘til death do us part. That’s what you say, isn’t it, Terry? It is, Terry. So say it. Say it, Terry! Say ‘’Til death do us part’ right now, Terry!”
After a red-faced Meeuwsen complied, Robertson stopped screaming and continued: “This is a kind of death. It starts with forgetting where the keys got put, then the next thing you know, you’re following this drooling, soulless zombie around the house with a pooper scooper and a baggie. That’s no kind of life. The Lord took the soul out of that husk a long time ago, and now you’re just living with a zombie. And they’re evil. The Bible tells us so.”
The one-time presidential candidate emphasized this point by quoting passages from Zechariah 14 and Revelations 11.
“Zechariah 14:12: ‘And the Lord will send a plague on all the nations that fought against Jerusalem. Their people will become like walking corpses, their flesh rotting away. Their eyes will rot in their sockets, and their tongues will rot in their mouths.’ Boom! Zombies. Revelation 11:11: ‘But after the three and a half days, a breath of life from God entered them, and they stood on their feet, and terror struck those who saw them.’ Bang! Zombies. And you know what the Lamb of God wants you to do? Huh? Kill ‘em, that’s what. He wants you to pick up your blessed shovels and divine guns and baseball bats, and He wants you to bash their flesh-eating heads in to a bloody pulp, with His heavenly love and mercy. Just as it says in Zechariah 14:13: ‘On that day they will be terrified, stricken by the Lord with great panic. They will fight their neighbors hand to hand.’”
In a similar vein, Robertson went on to defend fellow Republicans John McCain and Newt Gingrich, both of whom divorced their wives after the women had been diagnosed with cancer.
“These men endured a lot of outrage,” Robertson said. “But they did the Christian thing. I mean, cancer, it’s terminal. You pretty much have to write those people off and move on. Sure, it’s a miracle that God spared them. But as humans, we can’t predict God’s plans. We can only interpret natural disasters and terrorist attacks as the manifestation of His extreme displeasure with the choices some people make here on earth -- choices such as gay sex or left wing politics or becoming a zombie by catching the Alzheimer’s.”
Concluding the at times bizarre broadcast, Robertson left his viewers with a partial list of other conditions that render people “mostly dead inside” and therefore “divorceable.”
- Alzheimer’s disease
- Cancer
- Genital warts
- Flesh-eating bacteria
- Flesh eating
- Zombies
- The Gayness
- Feminism
- Whatever bug that Jane Roe woman had up her a--
- The ACLU
- Putting too many “pandering” and “exclusionary” national holidays on the books, like Martin Luther King, Jr. Day and then Black History Month
- Campaign contribution limits
- The Lesbianism
- Sleep walking
- Taxing the rich
- Judaism
- Islam
- Buddhism
- False Christianity (every denomination outside Baptist or, to a lesser extent, Methodist)
- Homosexuality
- That nagging feeling in your gut that things just aren’t right with your spouse, as though she’s been possessed
- Demonic possession
- Surviving demonic sodomy
- Crashing in the Andes and breaking your leg
- Gay sex
- Admitting that Rick Perry seems a little over-the-top
In potentially related story, Adele Elmer (“Gantry”) Robertson, the preacher’s wife, was spotted lunching with a prominent divorce attorney in a Virginia Beach bistro near the couple’s home.
(c) 2011. All stories are works of satire and parody. See disclaimers.