Just caught Erin Burnett on CNN talking about something I had noticed earlier today as trending on Yahoo!
Yup, that’s right, number one above.* On his “700 Club” television show yesterday, his co-host Kristi Watts read a letter from a woman having trouble forgiving a cheating husband. Watts called infidelity “one of the ultimate betrayals“, but Robertson said the woman should “stop talking about the cheating.” After asking some good questions which get at the heart of what it means to be good husband, he otherwise seems to miss the point, dismissing the problem of infidelity — and failing to understand the full meaning of marriage, particularly the marital vows:
He cheated on you. Well, he’s a man, okay, so, what you do is begin to focus on why you married him in the first place, on what he does good.
. . . .
But recognize also, like it or not, males have a tendency to wander a little bit. And what you want to do is make the home so wonderful that he doesn’t want to wander. But, think of the temptations that are out there. The Internet is filled with pornography. Magazines are filled with pictures, salacious pictures of women. Anywhere you turn around, there is some solicitation to the sense to entice a man. And so what you have to do is say, “My husband was captured and I want to get him free.”
Yes, Mr. Robertson is right; males do have a tendency to wander, but marriage vows exist to restrain that tendency, to remind a man that he has, to borrow a term many social conservatives like, made a covenant with a woman, forging a bond more important that the momentary gratification a dalliance with another women might offer.
What this man did was wrong and to earn forgiveness, he should first admit that.
Marriage has evolved for a great many reasons, one of them to control that tendency to wander. Mr. Robertson should have said as much. He should have said that what the cheating husband did was wrong — and criticized him for violating his vows. And for causing pain to a woman to whom he had sworn fidelity.
If the man admits to all that — and vows never again to stray, then it might be easier for the woman to forgive him. Maybe she does need to change. But, so does the husband. And Robertson should have said as much.
His failure to do so should cause us to question whether the televangelical understands what marriage is for.
*UPDATE: (10:50 GayPatriot time) Now the story is trending Number one on Yahoo!:
FROM THE COMMENTS: CSmith offers:
“My husband was captured”?! As if he has no responsibility in the betrayal of his marriage vows. It was just something that happened to him.
Yikes!
Well said. And note the passive construction as well, making the issue of agency ambiguous as if it was beyond the man’s control.
Please, please, please, no one take him seriously. I don’t know anyone who does. Even my most conservative friends don’t. I almost have to wonder if he’s going senile.
Chad is right, nobody takes him seriously..
He’s out of touch & almost everything he says is offensive to someone. I’ve been saying for years the old man needs to retire, he’s got to be losing more audience than he’s winning.
Alas, Robertson is prone to these strange pronouncements. Whenever he and Falwell were on at the same time you could count on them both uttering absolutely outrageous and stupid stuff. Frankly, I think Robertson is getting senile.
Infidelity is condemned by the Bible. Pat used to know better but clearly, Pat is increasingly “not all there.”
Somebody on his board of directors needs to get Pat to step back before his club suffers irreparable harm from the stupid stuff he says on-air.
And I am a VERY CONSERVATIVE (even Fundamentalist) Christian, straight male should it matter to anyone.
Sounds like Mr. Robertson would feel most comfortable in a country that lives under shariah law, since he feels married men don’t naturally carry any responsibility of faithfulness, and women are the reason for perpetual adultery, and therefore should probably all be wrapped in burkas and beaten senselessly if their husbands still “wander”.
Marriage is a private matter. Who cares what Pat Robertson or B. Daniel Blatt thinks. The wife and husband must both make choices and live them without prying, busybody outside eyes weighing in. Who cares what others think. Live your own life and stop being so judgmental of others.
P.S. Erin Burnett blows.
She does? What’s her phone number?
Pat Robertson forgot (in his slide into dementia) is that not only should she find it in her heart to forgive him, he needs to forgive himself as well.
And Forgiveness does not mean “Accept he’s a man, he does these things.” Men don’t. It means accept you’ve wounded others and make amends.
And Vince is right, Marriage is a private matter, why should anyone be involved. THank you very much Vince for coming over to the ‘Tradiitonal Marriage’ side of the argument. You’ve made it very clear that the judicial fiat shouldn’t redefine marriage. After all it’s a private matter.
I’m glad to see you’ve matured enough to accept that the courts should butt out of the issue.
Final Scenes from the Final Episode of NBC’s The Office:
http://commoncts.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-office-final-scenes-of-final-episode.html
Is Pat Robertson speaking for God or Pat Robertson? Since he is in the business of communicating ethics and morality based on The Bible it would seem that he may have slipped a cog or two and gone off the rails.
If a marriage partner succumbs to temptation, is divorce the immediate solution? On the other hand, is the temptation something that can be overcome by something so banal as ramping up the rewards at home?
You can not do the whole realm of marriage counseling in one little bumper sticker of pop culture philosophy.
I think what he’s trying to say is that a marriage may be worth forgiving an indiscretion.
May be true, especially if there’s children. If not, well, the one thing binding you has been severed.
Not a fan of Robertson, obviously, but base on the excerpts I read his remarks differently. He’s not saying infidelity is no big deal, he’s talking about forgiveness, about not throwing the baby out with the bathwater, about working through it and getting beyond it.
One of the huge problems we have in preserving marriage is the idea that if it isn’t perfect, you should just give up and move on.
If she decides to forgive him and save their marriage she deserves a “freebie” herself.
VS, I also agree marriage is a private matter. And if this woman who wrote the letter did not care that her husband cheated or she gave him permission to wander, that might be one thing. However, she apparently had the expectation that most (or at least I hope most) have when getting married (opposite sex or otherwise), that both will be faithful.
Maybe we are missing the whole context of what Robertson said, but his comments did sound off the wall, in line with the usual nonsense that his been coming out of his mouth of late. I’ll agree that the woman may need to do some soul searching herself to see if she herself is doing things in the marriage that are as bad as cheating. No, this doesn’t excuse the cheating, but it would mean they both have work to do to salvage the marriage. But it sounds as if she is the one that has to go out of her way to so that he won’t have the temptation to cheat.
If Robertson’s point was that the woman and her husband should try to work to salvage the marriage, that’s fine. But the point should have been made that the husband is the one that needs to make amends, he needs to be the one to go out of his way to make things right. If a marriage is at the point where only one of the persons is willing to do what’s necessary, then perhaps it is time for the marriage to end.
I would opine that you may be missing an important point. His words as quoted and thoughts as represented by those words are the typical response of a man who has cheated on his spose in the past. Those men that have in the past have a tendancy to make excused for those that do in the here and now.
I’m just saying! Have no facts to offer.
Spose should be “spouse.” Damn spell check not working. Sorrry.
Mama, I’ll agree with you that the woman “deserves a freebie,” however, being unfaithful is apparently totally against her principles. The reasons I do not cheat on my partner include the following: 1) I made a commitment to not do so; 2) I do not want to hurt my partner; 3) I don’t want to hurt myself, because it is against my principles to do so.
“My husband was captured”?! As if he has no responsibility in the betrayal of his marriage vows. It was just something that happened to him.
Yikes!
If you’re keeping score and calling out “freebies,” that’s a pretty dysfunctional relationship.
Anthropologically, marriage exists to establish paternity for the purposes of inheritance. It came into existence as humans moved from hunting and gathering to agrarian based civilizations, and established a class structure in addition to accumulating possessions that could be inherited. Beyond that, yeah, Pat Robertson is getting senile.
bwatkins, you’re only partially right, but have an understanding of marriage gleaned mostly from contemporary notions of anthropology. As it evolved in recorded history, it served a great variety of functions not limited to establishing paternity and one of those was channeling the male energies from wandering into protecting.
Too bad it just isn’t, Pat. Marriage has a dual private-public nature. Marriage’s public nature is why the government makes you get a license for it. You could still commit with somebody privately, of course… without the State’s recognition in the form of the license. But, as per gay groups (Gay Left marriage advocates), that isn’t good enough: you’re not really married, in their eyes, unless the State has graciously given you the public part, the license. Right? Or else, what have they been arguing over?
Actually, ILC, you are correct. It gives me a chance for clarifying my misleading statement. In my case, My partner and I not only got a civil union to get a piece of paper from the state, but as I found out afterwards, most people did not recognize our commitment until after the civil union. What I meant in my post above, and should have been much clearer is that, if the woman who wrote the letter wanted to keep her husband’s infidelity private, it was certainly her right. She could have ledft the matter entirely between her and her husband, in other words keep it as a private matter. But the letter indicated she did not want to keep the matter private.
@both GayPatriots. I would ask that both of you, and fans here, get the book “What is Marriage,” and read chapters 3 and four. I would enjoy input from you two (and others here).
Protestant fundamentalism is male supremacist. So it never surprises me when one of its adherents spouts “boys will be boys” rhetoric.