Ignoring the Religious Right talking point about how the biblical definition of marriage has always been the union of one man and one woman, televangelist Pat Robertson said today on “The 700 Club” that polygamy was okay during the Old Testament period since it helped “populate the race” and single women who would have otherwise faced poverty.
He also cited biological differences between the sexes as a reason for polygamy in the Old Testament: “A woman gets pregnant and she has a baby and it occupies her for a whole year, whereas a man can impregnate 20, 30, 50, 100 women and not slow down a bit.”
Robertson explained that biblical figures who practiced polygamy were not committing adultery, claiming that the practice only became wrong following Jesus’ teachings in the New Testament.
However, Robertson warned that polygamy will soon be legal in the U.S. because “there is no way under heaven” that it can remain illegal if same-sex marriage is allowed. (In reality, polygamy has not been legalized in any of the states where same-sex marriage is legal).
“As sure as you’re alive, we’re going to legalize polygamy and some of the women who have multiple wives seem to be pleased with it,” he added. “If a man in the Old Testament married two or three women, it wasn’t adultery because they were all married. And right now in the Muslim world they have four wives, Muslims can have four wives, and if he wants to have sex with a prostitute, he marries her, has sex with her and when they get through he says, ‘I divorce you, I divorce you, I divorce you,’ and then the marriage is over, that’s the law. You say it’s not fair but I don’t write the book.”
