The marriage vows may say “for better or for worse” and “in sickness and in health,” but Rev. Pat Robertson told his “700 Club” viewers that divorcing a spouse with Alzheimer’s is just fine. Robertson says that the vows say “until death do us part” and Alzheimer’s should be viewed as a type of death.
Robertson was asked on this television program for advice for a friend whose wife has started suffering from Alzheimer’s and has started to see another woman. Robertson responded “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.”
When he was reminded of that vows concerning “for better or for worse” and “until death do us part,” Robertson explained “If you respect that vow, you say ’til death do us part.’ This is a kind of death.”
I have always been fascinating by these programs with Muslim or Jewish or Christian figures dispensing advise to the faithful. No one ever asks, “are you just making this stuff up as you go along?” This seems a pretty massive change in the plain meaning of those vows. I hate to lawyer the language, but what is the basis for this new interpretation that the term “death” extends beyond the obvious meaning of the end of life and can include constructive death. It brings a new meaning to the phrase “you are dead to me.”
Source: Yahoo
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Lottakatz first used the term “misandry” and said that was not the case. One of these guys called me a feminazi and the other one the “v” word. Don’t need to defend myself or apologize to either of these men.
“Another No True Scotsman argument as Germaine Greer and any other prominent dipshit feminist is drummed out of feminism, same as how prominent dipshit democrats are derided (and even how the Republicans will tell us that George W. Bush is a RINO and deny he was #1 Republican.)”
Anon,
Slow down there please! I’m stating my opinion. I can’t drum anybody out of anything and BTW I’m not a Progressive even. My views represent me an me alone. Disagree or agree as you will, but please don’t elevate me to spokesman of anything but myself. My view is iconoclastic. What you seem to do is to put labels on things and put them into discrete mental boxes. I resent being so quickly categorized.
“But worse, feminist theory and feminist policies and active feminist misandry are now ensconced in US Law, and in administrative policies in schools, and widely throughout society.”
Unaware, you make my point. Let me give you an analogy. Brown vs. the
Board of Ed. held that separate but equal education was unequal education. The liberal/progressive solution to this was bussing. The communities the kids were bussed into were almost all white, working class communities struggling to maintain their own school systems due to inadequate funding. The ensuing disputes set back the Civil Rights Movement and created hostility between potential natural allies. That’s the problem with elites setting the agenda and unfortunately their good intentions going to hell. Feminism same problem. Salary and workplace inequality still exist, despite some laws designed to make people feel better without upsetting the oppressive “applecart”.
“are you telling me that you wouldn’t hold a great deal more sympathy to the woman seeking the divorce than to the man seeking the divorce?”
Yes, dammit! Stop putting me into your imaginary little categories of what you think I would believe in different situations. Anon, you are guilty of what you accuse others of being guilty. You work from a few instances and then make sweeping generalizations.
“Castigate Robertson on his hypocrisy. His advice here is actually what most of us in other circumstances would call compassionate, realistic, grey, and nuanced.”
Context is everything and Robertson’s long history provides the context. I am positive that if he were giving advice on the same situation to a female it would be to stand by your man. Why do I think that? Because that is the essence of his movement, female subservience.
“When you don’t call out swarthmore mom on her misandry, or mespo on his homophobic jokes are okay because he is a liberal, you are part of the problem. Quit being part of the problem.”
First of all I don’t see any of the tendencies in either SWM or Mespo that you do. Secondly, you know my name and can Google me for a large body of writing where I express my beliefs and opinions. to say I’m part of the problem is a snide, sanctimonious joke and disparages my lifetime of activism.
Anon,
anon
1, September 16, 2011 at 10:42 am
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When you don’t call out swarthmore mom on her misandry, or mespo on his homophobic jokes are okay because he is a liberal, you are part of the problem. Quit being part of the problem.
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Anon,
I do not think that Mike S is part of the problem….I may not always agree with what he has said….But, I will defend his right to say it…..
I also do not think that mespo is a homophobic…Please find me the post that he has indicated otherwise…..
While I generally agree with some of what SWM has posted….when as you call it became Misandry towards myself….It was only because I agreed with the Professor about Huntsman and then it went on that thread it went down hill after that….I stated my opinion about Ann Richards…and apparently she could not accept my personal opinion….of someone I had drank with at one time….
You are all over the board so it is hard to either agree or disagree with what you have stated……..but again…thanks for your statement….
Another No True Scotsman argument as Germaine Greer and any other prominent dipshit feminist is drummed out of feminism, same as how prominent dipshit democrats are derided (and even how the Republicans will tell us that George W. Bush is a RINO and deny he was #1 Republican.)
But worse, feminist theory and feminist policies and active feminist misandry are now ensconced in US Law, and in administrative policies in schools, and widely throughout society.
That’s of course documented by FIRE and by many others.
“Where the “public face” of feminism went wrong was in the fact that the people out front were from the leisure or academic classes and so issued their pronouncements from their particular elite perspectives.”
That’s not the public face. That IS where feminist theories are formed.
Regarding Robertson, who is indeed a 93% terrible person, Mike honestly, if you heard two identical stories, of an elderly couple, in which one partner had Alzheimer’s and the other did not. And the partner without Alzheimer’s was seeking a divorce so they could pursue other relationships, and the only difference between the two couples was the sex of the spouse with Alzheimer’s, are you telling me that you wouldn’t hold a great deal more sympathy to the woman seeking the divorce than to the man seeking the divorce?
Castigate Robertson on his hypocrisy. His advice here is actually what most of us in other circumstances would call compassionate, realistic, grey, and nuanced.
When you don’t call out swarthmore mom on her misandry, or mespo on his homophobic jokes are okay because he is a liberal, you are part of the problem. Quit being part of the problem.
Mike S.,
I generally will give respect to a person…It is not based on race or gender…I generally will over look snarks….I make them…some intentional…some not….However, when I do ask someone not to be snarky and I am informed that they will do what they want…Then, I think we have a different standard set in motion…Then when I respond…I am called a Republican….a Woman Hater….which to my understanding is the is the hatred or dislike of women (Females) and then after I respond to that I am to be viewed with askance…. I do not think that this is fair in the least….and then I get called out for it….Oh well…that is just the way it goes…so long as I can recall the ABC’s……But it still kind of pisses me off….
I’ve been blithely unaware of any sniping about feminism going on in other threads, or the parties to the sniping, but then it may all have gone above my head. The attacks on feminists and progressives though, using Germaine Greer’s words as an example, widely miss their mark in relevance.
Unfortunately, the defining slogans of feminists and of progressives, are shaped by a hostile, derisive media. Just like Gloria Steinem and T.Grace Atkinson, Greer has been a media “go to” person when issues touching on feminism arise. Those three and a few others were used because they were basically “mediaphiles” and “fame junkies” who basked in their fame and profited from it. Thus MS Magazine started out as a leader in the field only to bog down as a sort of “Cosmopolitan how to manual” for women interested in rising through the corporate ladder.
To me feminism is about the woefully long history of women being repressed/oppressed by social mores, religion and brute force. This behavior denied women power to affect society and in the process made it hostage to the aggression of testosterone. Males may be bigger and stronger but intellectually females are every bit their equals and in most instances surpass males in mature behavior.
The suppression of females has been obvious to me since childhood and in my own alienation I felt common cause with it growing up. Where the “public face” of feminism went wrong was in the fact that the people out front were from the leisure or academic classes and so issued their
pronouncements from their particular elite perspectives. This left our the viewpoints of strong, intelligent women, who may not have chosen, or had available, a career path recognized as upscale , but in their own lives asserted their equality. At times these “average” women were met by the obtuseness of male resistance and faced with the reality of not being given their due.
The similarity with media progressives and media feminists derive from
their lack of relationship to the masses they attempt to represent. They are all “hipper than thou” in this respect and thus hamper the progress of their movements by not building organizational structures that speak to
a majority. That they have had some success at all is a tribute to the justice of their cause, rather than to the skill with which they’ve put it forth.
This has been the one truth of the conservative/fundamentalist noise machine in identifying the “elitism” of the movements they oppose.
Back to the topic at hand though, Robertson’s sin is not his inept phrasing of the proposition, but in his overall hypocrisy. This is the sin of the entire pro-life posture in that it claims a total love for the sanctity of life, but allows many glaring exceptions.
LK,
If you will read back on a few political threads…I was getting digs by SWM and had asked her off of the blawg…why…and she said she’d do what she wanted…
If I posted something she disagreed with she’d make snarly remarks….But if we have two standards that’s fine…so long as I know the rules…I can play….
I’ll just go back to doing what I do and you the same…ok…
Blouse,
Your displeasure is to noted. Now, where were you when it was ok for one to make it a tradition to bash the male bashing personality?
I don’t think you really think that just because I am unhappy with Obama that I would like someone else as president and the only options are the GOP field makes me a republican? And just because someone thinks I am a republican makes me a woman hater (misogynist)? That should be viewed with askance? Certainly not you too!
A simple apology would suffice, don’t you think? Unless you as well think the same…
rafflaw, sometimes I take it as an omen that I should rethink the matter and come back to it later, maybe that posting just shouldn’t be made. That actually has proven to be true on a couple of occasions 🙂
“There have also been a few that I wish had been lost!”
When I lose a post, I usually cross myself, spit over my shoulder, and thank the Gods of Ellen Feiss for looking after me.
Lotta,
I would try the priest! I have lost an occasional post, and all of them were prizewinners! 🙂 There have also been a few that I wish had been lost!
No doubt they were prizewinners all 🙂
On occasionally posts I type on this site just disappear and I don’t know if it’s my laptop or WordPress or some weird server glitch- the color of the comment field changes a bit and the ‘Guest’- ‘Log-in’ etc boxes become un-anchored and show up overlaid on the comment box and then they disappear!! I don’t know if I need a technician or a priest to fix it.
@lottakatz, I agree 100% with you on this:
“If I was in Terri’s condition I would hope the better half could find some comfort with someone else. If I married a good man, he would wish the same for me if the positions were reversed.”
Also, those posts you lost, I bet they were terrific, because mine were some of my best.
I’ve written two longish postings regarding Robertson, divorce and Schiavo- both just *disappeared*.
Here’s the essence- marry anyone you choose, divorce whenever you choose, for whatever reason, it’s not the laws job to compel a broken or disadvantageous union. If I was in Terri’s condition I would hope the better half could find some comfort with someone else. If I married a good man, he would wish the same for me if the positions were reversed.
SM, I’m sorry to hear about your dog, I had a kitty die-off in December and still mourn them. Losing a long-time companion is always difficult. My condolences.
A word to the wise:
Anonymity is the spritual foundation of all our Traditions, ever reminding us to place principles above personalities.
LK,
Your displeasure is noted. Now note the cross talk was not raised by I. Your point, as I said is taken, but please stick to the facts you know. Thank you. It is not cool to interrupt… Thanks…
AY, it got old after day 2 when you pursued SM across every thread with overt as well as thinly concealed digs, Use the scroll wheel, that’s what it’s for if you’re still pissed. Don’t think this is a new refrain of mine, it’s not, you’re not the first person I’ve said this too: cross thread stalking is uncool, it taints perfectly good threads with old disputes. Give it a rest.
“If you are talking to me when you refer to “raffi”‘, you keep suggesting that Schiavo is the issue He didn’t divorce his wife like Robertson suggested.”
I know, I know. He didn’t divorce his wife, he just had an extramarital affair.
How do we punish that? Burning? Tar?
So what Robertson, the pious hypocrite said was that the guy should divorce the woman and then continue to live an adult life. So we all jumped on Robertson. I had thought it odd because the evidence I see is that liberals often send messages encouraging women to divorce men over almost nothing at all.
Then you came by to tell me, no, you and your priest take this shit seriously.
So since Michael Schiavo had an affair when his wife was technically living but brain dead, I am wondering what the honorable way for us to punish him is, which I think you would agree we must do to demonstrate we’re not hypocrites like Pat Robertson who believes in divorce in such cases.
HTH
Whether intended or not, Robertson’s comments are advancing a legitimate discussion. Elsewhere:
Dutch approve euthanasia for a patient with Alzheimer’s disease
Government does not own our lives. Laws restricting euthanasia are immoral and inhumane. Individuals who believe that living with Alzheimer’s is not an acceptable existence must be allowed medical assistance to conclude their lives with decency and without pain.