Pat Robertson: SF Gays Use Special Rings to Spread AIDS

Famous televangelist Pat Robertson is spreading the word: gay people in San Francisco are spreading AIDS.

With special rings.

On his "700 Club" show on Tuesday, Robertson informed co-host of what "they do in San Francisco," according to the San Jose Mercury News.

"You know what they do in San Francisco," Robertson began, according to the newspaper, "some in the gay community there, they want to get people so if they got (AIDS) they'll have a ring, you shake hands, and the ring's got a little thing where you cut your finger. Really. It's that kind of vicious stuff, which would be the equivalent of murder."

The comments were edited out of the broadcast by the Christian Broadcasting Network before they aired, according to the newspaper.

In a statement released later, Robertson said that he "had been misunderstood," the newspaper reported, and blamed the misunderstanding on people who don't listen to "context."

Robertson, he said, had been warned by security people when in San Francisco to not shake hands, "because, in those days, certain AIDS-infected activists were deliberately trying to infect people like me by virtue of rings which would cut fingers and transfer blood."