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SOULFORCE PRESS RELEASE: June 10, 2009
For Immediate Release
Contact: Carlos Perez de Alejo, Media Director
Cell: 321-948-3423
carlos@soulforce.org
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(Austin, TX) – Soulforce joins others in condemning the damaging and misguided comments of Pat Robertson, who recently linked homosexuality to sexual abuse by coaches, guidance counselors, and other male authority figures.

On the June 9th episode of The 700 Club, Robertson was asked by a concerned mother “how to handle” her gay son.  In response, Robertson noted, “I am not at all persuaded that so-called homosexuals are homosexuals because of biological problems.  There may be a very few, but there are so many that have made homosexual because of a coach or a guidance counselor or other male figure who has abused them and they think there’s something wrong with their sexuality.”  He went on to add that because homosexuals are “on their way to hell…you’ve got to love them to rescue them.”

Soulforce Executive Director, Jeff Lutes, stated in response, "Soulforce has been monitoring the rhetoric of Pat Robertson for many years.  In fact, in the 90’s we created a short video called The Rhetoric of Intolerance that exposed many of Robertson’s ridiculous claims.  As a therapist, it is hard for me to believe that there are still so many who refuse to even consider the growing body of social science research on this subject. Robertson ought to be deeply ashamed of himself for giving the mother who wrote him, and his television viewers, such misguided, erroneous, and dangerous advice.  I hope this young man’s parents will ignore Robertson and seek more reputable information – his very life just might depend on it."

Soulforce is a national civil rights and social justice organization dedicated to freedom for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people from religious and political oppression through the practice of relentless nonviolent resistance.

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