On The 700 Club today, Pat Robertson claimed that gay people in San Francisco wear special rings in order to cut people so they can then intentionally infect them with AIDS when they shake hands.

Watch, AFTER THE JUMP…

CBN edited Robertson's claim out of the broadcast which it aired online, Right Wing Watch reports.

Robertson's claim came in a response to a viewer question from “a woman who wondered if it was wrong for the church not to inform her that a man she was driving to worship services is ‘dying of AIDS,.'”

Said Robertson:

“There are laws now, I think the homosexual community has put these draconian laws on the books that prohibit people from discussing this particular affliction, you can tell somebody you had a heart attack, you can tell them they've got high blood pressure, but you can't tell anybody you've got AIDS…

…You know what they do in San Francisco, some in the gay community there they want to get people so if they got the stuff 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.”

Watch, AFTER THE JUMP…

UPDATE: Robertson releases a non-apology…

“In my own experience, our organization sponsored a meeting years ago in San Francisco where trained security officers warned me about shaking 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.

“I regret that my remarks had been misunderstood, but this often happens because people do not listen to the context of remarks which are being said. In no wise (sic) were my remarks meant as an indictment of the homosexual community or, for that fact, to those infected with this dreadful disease.” – Pat Robertson, in a statement emailed to me by the head publicist for the 700 Club.

Get all the Towleroad headlines first – follow us on Twitter @TLRD.