American televangelist James Robison has died aged 82. Robison was the founder of Life Outreach International and had a long history of attacking LGBTIQA+ people and communities.
Alongside his wife Betty, he hosted the LIFE Today show which was available on television and as a podcast.
His death was announced by the organisaton he founded who said ““James devoted his life to sharing the Gospel and bringing hope, help, and healing to those in need around the world.”
In the 1980s Robison ventured into politics, but withdrew from that realm in the late 1980s to focus on his church and outreach work to third-world countries. Around this this time he switched from the evangelist movement to the Charismatic approach to preaching.
In 1979 Robison lost his regular slot on a Dallas television station for his over-the-top attacks on homosexuality which he described as “vile”, “despicable”, and “repulsive”. He threatened to sue the station which one of 85 that aired his program.
At a rally in 1980 he declared “”I’m sick and tired of hearing about all the radicals and the perverts and the liberals and the leftists and the communists coming out of the closet. It’s time for God’s people to come out of the closet, out of the churches, and change America!”
At the time of the rally his Communications Director was Mike Huckabee, who is now the US Ambassador to Israel. Huckabee has credited Robison’s 1980 speech and the moment that led to the creation of right-wing lobby group Moral Majority.
Throughout his decades in the public eye Robison continued to condemn LGBTIQA+ people.
