The world is filled with religious nut-jobs. This is not a criticism of religion itself, but an observation of those who pervert and hi-jack religion to explain away their equally perverse thoughts and actions. As you read these words, thousands upon thousands of Haitians are dead;  hundreds of thousands more and suffering the wrath of a mammoth earthquake that took place on Tuesday. The entire impoverished country is in ruins. American Christian Leader Pat Robertson, the popular Evangelical Radio and TV personality, has claimed that the recent Earthquake in Haiti was to Haiti’s “pact with the devil.”  Below are his own words:

“Something happened a long time ago in Haiti and people might not want to talk about. They were under the heel of the French, you know Napoleon the third and whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said ‘We will serve you if you will get us free from the prince.’ True story. And so the devil said, ‘Ok it’s a deal.’ And they kicked the French out. The Haitians revolted and got something themselves free. But ever since they have been cursed by one thing after another.”

The United States of America is home to some of the world’s most fundamentalist Christians, radicals if you will. The scary part is that in a country of 300 million people, there are numbers in excess of a million (and perhaps much more) that would fully agree with Robertson on this and all that he has said in the past. In our ever shrinking Global Village, these words are then sent around the planet in an instant and people in  Central an South America, the Middle East, Africa and beyond see them as representing America. This is what makes people like Robertson or even Glenn Beck so very dangerous. They breed hate and misunderstanding.

The Muslim world deals with this all the time. With 1.3 billion Muslims in the world over, even if only 3% are radical fundamentalists, their numbers are in the millions and they have come to represent the other 97%.

What makes Robertson’s words so disgusting is they don’t come after a terrorist attack or a violent protest of some sort, they come on the heels of the complete devastation of an already horribly impoverished people, their dead stacked ten of thousands high all around them. His words are so bitterly cold and cruel, that it’s hard to comprehend a human being able to say them; even more so at such a horrible time for the Haitian people.  He should be ashamed of himself and America should be ashamed of him. And the next time people throw the word fundamentalist around, don’t forget to look over at toxic pool of the American Evangelical Christian Right. Radicals don’t only live in the Middle East. Sometimes they’re right next door.

From David Anthony Hohol…