Freedom of Speech: Phil Robertson Gon’ Learn Today

jamin | December 19, 2013 | 0 Comments

BREAKING NEWS: Louisiana man who makes ducks want to have sex with him for profit makes judgmental statements against gay people and black people, but winds up not being able to be seen on his own show indefinitely.

Phil Robertson, star of A&E’s Duck Dynasty, the highest-rated nonfiction cable TV show in history, made some statements recently and was effectively canned from appearing on his own show by A&E. Here is a bit of what he said about gay people (all quotes from GQ and E! Online.)

“Start with homosexual behavior and just morph out from there. Bestiality, sleeping around with this woman and that woman and that woman and those men,” he tells the magazine. Paraphrasing Corinthians, he says, “Don’t be deceived. Neither the adulterers, the idolaters, the male prostitutes, the homosexual offenders, the greedy, the drunkards, the slanderers, the swindlers—they won’t inherit the kingdom of God. Don’t deceive yourself. It’s not right. It seems like, to me, a vagina—as a man—would be more desirable than a man’s anus. That’s just me. I’m just thinking: There’s more there! She’s got more to offer. I mean, come on, dudes! You know what I’m saying? But hey, sin: It’s not logical, my man. It’s just not logical.”

Well, that’s just lovely, and he’s definitely entitled to his own opinion. He can blog about it mention it in private, but when it’s connected to the show, which A&E owns, that’s when it becomes problematic.

Furthermore, why is it that straight Christians (especially the men) forget about lesbians when talking about gay people, and they always (always always) mention butt sex? Gay people are more than sex and if you only think of gay people in sexual terms, dehumanizing them, then you’re a homophobe and anti-gay, no matter how much you try to cloak it in “Well, the Bible says…” or say that you have a heart for gay people. Believing that a gay person’s very existence creates a stench in God’s nostrils and is a bane to your way of life is not loving because you can never separate them from the sex that they may (or may not) be having. Since he quoted from I Corinthians, the next verse says that once Jesus saves you then you’re absolved of that description and viewed as righteous in God’s eyes because of Jesus, but vocal conservative Christians never seem to make it that far in the I Corinthians reference. There’s hope given in the chapter, but they just like spouting fear.

Y’all, I get so tired of explaining this to folks.

On the back-end of Phil’s comments are these little gems:

“All you have to do is look at any society where there is no Jesus. I’ll give you four: Nazis, no Jesus. Look at their record. Uh, Shintos? They started this thing in Pearl Harbor. Any Jesus among them? None. Communists? None. Islamists? Zero. That’s 80 years of ideologies that have popped up where no Jesus was allowed among those four groups. Just look at the records as far as murder goes among those four groups.”

“…hmmm…”

Y’all, America has really painted M.A.C. Studio Fix all over Christianity’s not-always-stellar history. Let’s look at the slave trade, white supremacy, antisemitism, the Inquisition, and any Crusade after the first one just to name a few things. And finally:

“I never, with my eyes, saw the mistreatment of any black person, not once. Where we lived was all farmers. The blacks worked for the farmers. I hoed cotton with them. I’m with the blacks, because we’re white trash. We’re going across the field…. They’re singing and happy. I never heard one of them, one black person, say, ‘I tell you what: These doggone white people’—not a word!… Pre-entitlement, pre-welfare, you say: Were they happy? They were godly; they were happy; no one was singing the blues.”

Are…you…for real?

So, I guess Blues being a genre of music created by Black people doesn’t count? Goodness, did his family own a television back then or even know how to read a newspaper? Granted, black people were a prouder people during segregation and kept up the community better than today, but we never said a mumblin’ word while singing songs of carefree living working in the cotton field? If the only black people he knew were the ones who were employed along with him, then I gather he didn’t look hard enough for the ones who actively resented the white power structure enough to fight back against it.

A&E told Phil Robertson today that he will not be returning to Duck Dynasty anytime soon. The conservative/libertarian sector is very upset about this and believe that Robertson’s rights are being infringed upon. As a private company who does not receive government funding, this doesn’t really apply. While we have the right to free speech in this country, when you do it while connected to a private entity, that does come with repercussions if you say something out-of-the-way that would get you throat chopped in the wrong neighborhood. Keeping that in mind, it’s a lesser punishment to get canned indefinitely than have your throat be healing when you depend on that for your livelihood of making duck sex calls while not appearing on TV.