I'm not a TV fan, but there's a TV show out there I haven't seen on A&E called 'Duck's Dynasty', that, from what I've heard, is a about a family in Louisiana who openly espouses Christianity and what we could call traditional American values on the air.
The show is a huge, off the charts success in the ratings.
Apparently there's a huge controversy now going on because of an
Let me underline that...the remarks made were not made on the air, but in a magazine interview several weeks ago.
A lot of the interview, of course, concerned the family's Christian beliefs and Phil's own wild past before he became a Christian. As you can imagine, he sees Duck Dynasty as something of a push back against a lot of what constitutes popular culture today.
"Everything is blurred on what's right and what's wrong," he says. "Sin becomes fine."
When asked what he considered sinful, he replied:
"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 says. Then he paraphrases Corinthians: "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."
Later in the interview, he made a point of saying that he's not trying to be judgmental, but that these are merely his views as he sees them, saying, " "We never, ever judge someone on who's going to heaven, hell. That's the Almighty's job. We just love 'em, give 'em the good news about Jesus--whether they're homosexuals, drunks, terrorists. We let God sort 'em out later, you see what I'm saying?"
That sentiment on his part didn't change things one iota. His equating homosexuality with sin, just as the Bible he believes in says it is was all it took.
Because of those remarks, he's been indefinitely suspended from the A7E television show.
My friend Terresa Monroe-Hamilton over at The Noisy Room :
For telling the truth and stating what he personally believed, A&E put him on indefinite hiatus. They fired him. I would be very surprised if the family did not tell A&E to stuff it. They managed to take THE most popular rated show ever and scuttle it. Phil had told A&E earlier that if they insisted he remove God or guns from his show, they were through [...]
Drudge headlined this whole shameful turn of events on his site this morning with: "Roasted 'Duck' - Leader Fired After Gay Rant. The title is misleading as I don't consider Phil's statement as a rant, but a confirmation of his beliefs and faith. He has a right according to the First Amendment to state his views. And while A&E has a right to run their channel as they see fit, they obviously care more about the rights of Gays than they do of Christians and they fear the backlash from the LGBT community and their supporters. They don't give a crap about Constitutional rights and evidently they are willing to throw away millions in revenue to placate a certain segment of society. That pretty much says it all, doesn't it? A&E chose sides with GLAAD, took a stand and walked off a cliff. It's okay for militant Gays to attack Christians and hunt them down, but when a Christian stands up and says what he believeswell, that's hate don't ya know.
She's entirely correct.GLAAD is a far Left group that despises Christians, and was conspicuously noticeable by its absence after Alec Baldwin's anti-gay slurs, which were a whole lot worse than anything Phil Robertson had to say.
Greg over at Rhymes With Right makes the point that firing Phil Robertson :
"It shall be an unlawful employment practice for an employer - to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual's race, color, religion, sex, or national origin;"
A&E has made a public announcement to the effect that it has suspended Phil Robertson from his employment on the series Duck Dynasty for having expressed his religious beliefs outside of the workplace. This action certainly "otherwise discrimnate[s] against an individual with respect to his. . . terms, conditions, or privileges of employment because of such individuals. . . religion". Will the Obama Administration take action to uphold the civil rights of Phil Robertson in the face of this flagrant and public violation of his rights under the 1964 Civil Rights Act? Or will this be one more example of the administration picking and choosing what laws it enforces based upon whether upholding and enforcing the law benefits those constituencies that support Obama and his political agenda?
Oh,I think we know the answer to that one. There's far too much donor money involved.Would the president and his attorney general be going public and unleashing the Justice Department on A%E if Phil Robertson were a gay man fired for bashing Christianity and extolling the virtues of homosexuality in a private interview ? Would three quarters of the media be going absolutely berserk? I think we know the answer to that one too.
To the people out for Phil Robertson's scalp, this is not a matter of civil rights per se, but a matter of 'our rights trump yours, just because'.
The truth of the matter is that the show and the Robertson family have been 'sitting ducks' for quite some time.They champion everything the Left has been trying to destroy for years - America's traditional culture of Judeo-Christian faith, the Second Amendment, self-reliance, traditional marriage and the nuclear family.
The show's financial success kept the wolves at bay for awhile, but A&E (along with Disney, who owns A&E) have made a business decision to listen to their voices and violate Phil Robertson's First Amendment rights
How that plays out based on the blowback they get from it will be another business decision they'll have to make.
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