Nov 20, 2005 12:38
I finally got around to submitting a heavily revised version of that Criswell-Pat Robertson thing to McSweeney's, but they didn't go for it. I choose to assume that this was because it's overlong, not because it's underfunny. Anyway, since I took the time to revise it, and since it was originally on this page anyway, I'll just go ahead and inflict it on you instead.
THE REVEREND PAT ROBERTSON AND THE AMAZING CRISWELL DISCUSS THE ISSUES OF THE DAY
On the recent Dover, Pennsylvania, school board election in which
intelligent-design proponents were voted out of office:
PAT ROBERTSON: I’d like to say to the good citizens of Dover: if there is a
disaster in your area, don't turn to God-- you just rejected him.
CRISWELL: I predict an outburst of cannibalism that will terrorize the
population of one of the industrial cities in the state of Pennsylvania.
PAT ROBERTSON: And if that’s the case, don't ask for his help, because he
might not be there. If they have future problems… I recommend they call on
Charles Darwin. Maybe he can help them.
CRISWELL: You have chosen your own fate. Live with it-- I should say die
with it!
On criticisms of President Bush's plan to send astronauts to Mars:
CRISWELL: We once laughed at the horseless carriage…the aeroplane…the
telephone, the electric light, vitamins, radio and even television! And now
some of us laugh at outer space.
PAT ROBERTSON: This is, in a sense, my view of what Hell is like. You will
be out in darkness, not with a lot of friends. Let me tell you, being in
outer darkness, launched out into space with no one there forever and ever
and ever is one of the most horrible thoughts I could imagine.
CRISWELL: Perhaps on your way home, someone will pass you in the dark, and
you will never know it, for they will be from outer space!
On gay rights:
PAT ROBERTSON: [Homosexuals] want to come into churches and disrupt church
services and throw blood all around and try to give people AIDS and spit in
the face of ministers.
CRISWELL: And all this will be within the law because the perverted will
claim they have been discriminated against. The Supreme Court will rule that
whatever these consenting adult males, or females, wish to do, they can!
PAT ROBERTSON: Many of those people involved with Adolf Hitler were
Satanists, many of them were homosexuals-- the two things seem to go
together. Such people are sinning against God and will lead to the ultimate
destruction of the family and our nation.
CRISWELL: As it is with all the Night People, they are destroyed by the
first rays of the sun. But upon the first appearance of the deep shadows of
the night, and when the moon is full, they will return, to rejoice in their
evil lust, and take back with them any mortal who might happen along.
On military objectives and conduct:
PAT ROBERTSON: You know, I don't know about this doctrine of assassination,
but if (Venezuelan president Chavez) thinks we're trying to assassinate him,
I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it.
CRISWELL: Torture! Torture! It pleasures me!
On the feminist movement:
CRISWELL: This is a story of the threshold people. Once human, now monsters.
Monsters to be pitied! Monsters to be despised!
PAT ROBERTSON: The feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It
is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women
to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy
capitalism, and become lesbians. [Planned Parenthood] is teaching kids to
fornicate, teaching people to have adultery, every kind of bestiality,
homosexuality, lesbianism -- everything that the Bible condemns.
CRISWELL: I predict a wealthy San Francisco attorney will announce his
marriage to his mother and a Hollywood producer will openly declare his
daughter is going to bear his child, and a young man in Arkansas will ask to
be legally wed to his pet cat.
On marriage:
PAT ROBERTSON: I know this is painful for the ladies to hear, but if you get
married, you have accepted the headship of a man, your husband. Christ is
the head of the household and the husband is the head of the wife, and
that's the way it is, period.
CRISWELL: A pussycat is born to be whipped.
PAT ROBERTSON: If you take an unbeliever for a spouse, you have the devil
for a father-in-law.
CRISWELL: I have promised both The Wolf Man and The Mummy a reward. It
could be that you are that reward.
On proper governance:
PAT ROBERTSON: If Christian people work together, they can succeed during
this decade in winning back control of the institutions that have been taken
from them over the past 70 years.
CRISWELL: They will lead this nation into the strictly controlled America…
where all man's thoughts and morals are controlled for him.
PAT ROBERTSON: Individual Christians are the only ones really -- and Jewish
people, those who trust God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob -- are the only
ones that are qualified to have the reign, because hopefully, they will be
governed by God and submit to Him.
CRISWELL: It will be a super spiritual dictatorship. Just as you follow the
laws of your religion, you will be required to follow the laws of your
state. Even the mildest traffic infraction will be so unforgivable and
unthinkable you will not dare to do it in the first place.
PAT ROBERTSON: This decade will not be for the faint of heart.
CRISWELL: We will be completely subjugated by the state. This is not as bad,
however, as it may sound. You will live under certain prescribed laws and
that is all there is to it.
PAT ROBERTSON: The termites are in charge now, and that is not the way it
ought to be, and the time has arrived for a godly fumigation.
On the End Times:
PAT ROBERTSON: [Natural disasters] are starting to hit with amazing
regularity. What was called the blessed hope of the Bible is that one day
Jesus Christ would come back again, start a whole new era. And before that
good time comes there will be some difficult days… likened to what a woman
goes through in labor just before she brings forth a child. The Bible does
indicate such a time will happen. And could this be it? It might be.
CRISWELL: A jet-black rainbow; an ebony rainbow; a black rainbow will
signify the coming suffocation of our world. It will draw the oxygen from
our atmosphere, as a huge snake encircling the world. When the final end
arrives, we will go silently, we will go gasping for breath, and then there
will be only silence on the earth.
Final thoughts:
PAT ROBERTSON: There's a neck muscle that is very sore…the Lord has just
healed it.
CRISWELL: Can you prove it didn't happen?