Pat Robertson: Bigamy! In Virginia!

I learned this week of a Virginia woman who pled guilty on Tuesday to charges of bigamy, perjury, and parental kidnapping. She is married to a man, met a woman, left her husband (taking her children with her), and then married her girlfriend without getting a divorce first. She has been sentenced to four years (suspended) for the bigamy and perjury charges and now faces two years of supervised probation, plus fines. You can read about it here.

Pat Robertson thought that the whole story was hilarious and spent a few minutes cackling about it on yesterday's "700 Club." Here is the transcript:

Pat Robertson: Terry! Are you ready for it? We have all of these strange new marriages. Now guess what?

Terry Meeuwsen: *Chuckles* I shudder to think. I can’t imagine.

Pat: We live in Virginia, okay? Conservative old dominion. And I was born in a city called Lexington and up the road from Lexington – 40-50 miles, at least – is a town called Waynesboro. And they had mules and factories. It was a nice little town. Pretty little town.

There was a lady in Waynesboro, according to the story I read – I think it’s Waynesboro. She was married. To a man. And they had a baby. A child.

Terry: Yes?

Pat: Now guess what follows next in Waynesboro, Virginia? She finds a woman. She thinks the woman is her soulmate so she gets married… to the woman!

Terry: She divorces the husband?

Pat: No! She didn’t divorce anybody. She got married to the woman. She was already married to the man.

Now who would’ve thought that there would be a case that would convict her of bigamy! Forget that it involved a same-sex marriage with a woman when she’s already married to a man!

Terry: Crazy world.

Pat: It’s a crazy world, folks! But, according to the news report… I read it! It said she got convicted. I don’t think they did a lot to her, but the husband said “I want the child. I don’t want the child living with these people.”

Terry: She sounds like she’s mixed up… to say the least!

Pat: She’s found true romance, according to the Supreme Court. I mean, that’s her constitutional right. Well, we’ll see. It’s gonna get… Hey, if the Supreme Court rules like they may… Heaven help Christian schools, Christian churches… We just don’t know how pervasive this things gonna get. But imagine a little town in Virginia – in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia – near my hometown! Bigamy!

How can you have bigamy? How can you have polygamy? You can have no ill will against polygamy…

Terry: Well, if the law is passed that’s…

Pat: Yeah, but if it’s a constitutional right that you can have same-sex, then why in the world can’t you have polyamory? Why can’t you have polygamy?

It's pretty sad -- though hardly surprising -- to see Pat Robertson laugh out loud over this story. Terry Meeuwsen actually seemed concerned about this situation. But it's hardly the first time that a marriage has broken up over another relationship. Or that somebody has been convicted of bigamy in this country.

But Robertson want his followers to be concerned that we're going to become the United States of Polybigamerica should the U.S. Supreme Court rule in favorite of marriage equality advocates later this month.

You can watch the whole video here.