In 2001 Jerry Falwell and Pat Roberts knew why God sent hurricanes, but no word from them about on why God hates Florida now.
FALWELL: “The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad. I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way – all of them who have tried to secularize America – I point the finger in their face and say ‘you helped this happen.’”
PAT ROBERTSON: “Well, I totally concur . . .”
Maybe Robertson convinced God to attack Florida, he claims to have used the power of prayer to steer hurricanes away from his Virginia Beach, Virginia headquarters. He took credit for steering the course in 1985 of Hurricane Gloria, which caused millions of dollars of destruction in many states along the east coast. He made a similar claim about another destructive storm, Hurricane Felix in 1995.
Falwell and Robertson have convinced themselves that when a hurricane hits Virginia Beach (Robertson’s neck of the woods), there’s no meaning to it, and that when a hurricane fails to hit Orlando as predicted in retribution for Disney’s equal rights policies for gays and lesbians, there’s no meaning to it, and that when AIDS devastates the (straight) population of Africa, or 460 die when a ferry sinks in the Red Sea – or six million innocent Jews or three million innocent Cambodians are exterminated – God merely works in mysterious ways . . . but that when religious fanatics crash planes into the World Trade Center, because they believe it will take them to a special place in heaven, this is not caused by a fanatic religious certitude greater in degree but not entirely dissimilar from their own. Rather, they concur, it is caused, at least in part, because people like me have made God mad.
