On yesterday’s edition of the 700 Club, Pat “You Can Get AIDS From a Towel” Robertson told a caller that she should not act as “an enabler” for her son, who had recently come out as gay and an atheist, but should instead love him the same way you would a “drug addict” in order to bring him back to, per the caller’s wishes “the path of Christ.”

Said Robertson:

You cannot go along and say “I agree with your lifestyle,” and so don’t be an enabler — any more than if he’s a drug addict; you don’t enable people to continue their drug habit. But you let him know you love him. Let him know God loves him….You don’t’ want to shun him. You want to have love, but you’ve got to let him know that you don’t approve of the things that he’s doing.

Here’s the video, via Right Wing Watch:

While Robertson’s comparison is patently offensive, should we really be that surprised? The Christian Right has spent years promoting a family-friendly “love the sinner; hate the sin” message, ever since they realized that calling for real hatred of gays isn’t in vogue anymore (at least not in America). And if you believe that homosexuality is a choice, something that you can choose not to feel or act on, then it’s easier to forgive “bad behavior” in hopes that it will eventually be corrected.

This has sparked a burgeoning ex-gay rehab business that states are slowly but surely banning for children, as such programs amount to child abuse. In other words, the Christian Right has convinced itself that being gay is just another vice. Your son being gay isn’t all that different from your brother being an alcoholic. One might leave you worse off on Judgment Day, but both are nothing more than addictive habit that can be confronted and, with time and prayer, cured.

Just don’t tell that to the adults who actually attend ex-gay rehab, which one straight journalist described as “literally the gayest thing I’ve ever done in my life.”