Televangelist Pat Robertson implied that a young boy may be reading gay magazines because he was " attacked or molested by an authority figure" in the past.
Robertson, who is no stranger to anti-gay proclamations, made the eyebrow-raising suggestion to a father who wrote into "The 700 Club" looking for advice after finding a gay magazine in his son's bedroom, Right Wing Watch first reported.
"The chances are your son is not gay, but somebody gave him a book about it," Robertson said. "A lot of these so-called 'gay' people have been either attacked [or] molested by some authority figure, or else a magazine or something has confused them."
He went on to note that a father-son discussion about sexuality would be better than letting the boy "be exposed to a bunch of pornographic magazines" featuring "naked pictures of naked men doing sex with each other."
The sentiments aren't particularly surprising given Robertson's history. Last year, he advised another "700 Club" viewer to find her 13-year-old stepson some male companions, as "being raised by a single woman" was "skewering his orientation" and causing him to have crushes on boys.
“Before I did anything else, I would get him male companions," Robertson said at the time. "I’d get him some man to help him, some mentor, someone who cares about young men.”
In 2013, he told another view to pray for her 30-year-old nephew who had come out as gay, because homosexuality is "a delicate situation."
“A few years ago psychiatrists and psychologists used to say that homosexuality was a mental illness, now the Supreme Court has said that it is a protected right,” Robertson said at the time. “So what’s he going to pray about? Is he going to say something is wrong and he’s unhappy? And if he’s unhappy and realizes he is doing something that makes him miserable, you might help him.”
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