'Duck Dynasty's' Phil Robertson on Indefinite Hiatus Following Anti-Gay Remarks

[Gingersnap]

'Duck Dynasty's' Phil Robertson on Indefinite Hiatus Following Anti-Gay Remarks
4:39 PM PST 12/18/2013 by Lesley Goldberg

UPDATED: The news comes after the reality star compared being gay to bestiality, drawing ire from LGBT groups including GLAAD and the Human Rights Campaign.

"We are extremely disappointed to have read Phil Robertson's comments in GQ, which are based on his own personal beliefs and are not reflected in the series Duck Dynasty," A&E said in a statement. "His personal views in no way reflect those of A+E Networks, who have always been strong supporters and champions of the LGBT community. The network has placed Phil under hiatus from filming indefinitely."

The news comes after Robertson compared homosexuality to bestiality in an interview with the magazine. He'll likely appear in season four, which bows Jan. 15, since production is largely wrapped.

"It seems like, to me, a vagina -- as a man -- would be more desirable than a man's anus," Robertson says in the January issue of the men's magazine. "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."

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During a discussion about repentance and God, Robertson is asked what he finds sinful.

"Start with homosexual behavior and just morph out from there," he says. "Bestiality, sleeping around with this woman and that woman and that woman and those men."

He goes on to paraphrase 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."

GLAAD on Wednesday condemned his remarks as "some of the vilest and most extreme statements uttered against LGBT people in a mainstream publication" and said "his quote was littered with outdated stereotypes and blatant misinformation."

"Phil and his family claim to be Christian, but Phil's lies about an entire community fly in the face of what true Christians believe," GLAAD spokesperson Wilson Cruz said. "He clearly knows nothing about gay people or the majority of Louisianans -- and Americans -- who support legal recognition for loving and committed gay and lesbian couples. Phil's decision to push vile and extreme stereotypes is a stain on A&E and his sponsors, who now need to re-examine their ties to someone with such public disdain for LGBT people and families."

LOL! This will be fun to watch to watch. I don't get the impression that these guys give a rat's ass about A&E, GLAAD, Hollywood, or much else outside of their families and duck call business.

HR

[Billy Jingo]

The strange thing is what he said about blacks struck me as much worse.

Oh, and this is almost too good to be true. Take a popular, religious icon from a hicksploitation show whose demographic wheelhouse is rural America (the Clingers), let him say something less then elegant about the gays, and you have a recipe for madcap mayhem and enough outrage fuel for at least a week.

Facebook may explode.

[Adam]

Having read the interview itself, frankly I find it poorly-written and quite disjointed. It reads like it was written by someone who has never actually been in the woods before, or if he has, it was that sanitized, city version of being in the woods, in which everything involved comes from North Face and L. L. Bean and people consider themselves to be "roughing it" when they have to manually grind their Starbucks beans before using their Sharper Image outdoors-rated French press. It's clear that the author has absolutely no understanding of his own subject.

I note that all of the "notable" quotes have absolutely no context around them. Makes me wonder how much these were taken out of context. This is one of the reasons that I greatly prefer interviews in transcript format.

The strange thing is what he said about blacks struck me as much worse.

I didn't really see anything wrong with what he said. It was the truth, for where and when he was. Jim Crow happened in towns and cities; it didn't happen in the farmland. Deeply rural farmers were farmers first, and always have been. What this guy Phil said reflects exactly my grandfather's experience growing up in extremely rural (as in dirt roads were considered "improved") Tennessee in the pre-Depression and Depression era. Same goes for my other grandfather's farming kin along the Alabama/Mississippi border of about the same time: while my grandfather's immediate family was in Birmingham and Jim Crow was very strictly enforced, it was like Jim Crow didn't even exist in the far-away, raw farmland in Lamar County, Alabama, where my great uncle John lived.

Oh, and this is almost too good to be true. Take a popular, religious icon from a hicksploitation show whose demographic wheelhouse is rural America (the Clingers), let him say something less then elegant about the gays, and you have a recipe for madcap mayhem and enough outrage fuel for at least a week.

Facebook may explode.

Indeed. The outrage is really something to behold.

[Billy Jingo]

Indeed. The outrage is really something to behold.

I have a lot of family and friends in rural Arkansas and Oklahoma. This is tailor made for them. If I was conspiratorial minded, I would say it had to be deliberate. It is just too perfect.

[Adam]

Dallas had a good point on facebook that sprang up from twitter: GLAAD got completely bent out of shape, immediately, over some rural, conservative, unabashedly Christian for saying "vile stereotypes," but they have yet to utter a syllable about Alec Baldwin's oft-repeated, clearly anti-gay insults. And, almost comically, the only thing that could be remotely a "vile stereotype" that he said in the interview (at least what was published) was that your asshole is not there to put a dick in it. Newsflash, people: most people have no interest in anal sex. That's not a stereotype, that's just reality.

[Billy Jingo]

Dallas had a good point on facebook that sprang up from twitter: GLAAD got completely bent out of shape, immediately, over some rural, conservative, unabashedly Christian for saying "vile stereotypes," but they have yet to utter a syllable about Alec Baldwin's oft-repeated, clearly anti-gay insults. And, almost comically, the only thing that could be remotely a "vile stereotype" that he said in the interview (at least what was published) was that your asshole is not there to put a dick in it. Newsflash, people: most people have no interest in anal sex. That's not a stereotype, that's just reality.

Not sure I really care about the gotcha aspect of Alec Baldwin getting fired and Phil Duckcall just getting suspended. And for my part, I think Phil has a better grasp of 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 than most evangelizing Christians (although it is incomplete, in my opinion).

Regardless, he gets to be a martyr for a bit. Might bring back some of that audience that was drifting away.

[Novaheart]

The strange thing is what he said about blacks struck me as much worse.

Oh, and this is almost too good to be true. Take a popular, religious icon from a hicksploitation show whose demographic wheelhouse is rural America (the Clingers), let him say something less then elegant about the gays, and you have a recipe for madcap mayhem and enough outrage fuel for at least a week.

Facebook may explode.

What did he say about black people that you find objectionable?

[Billy Jingo]

What did he say about black people that you find objectionable?

He was talking in caricature. It was like reading the original lyrics of Old Kentucky Home.

The last bit sounds like someone not aware that irony died on 9/11.

"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."

Except the people who invented it.

[Novaheart]

Dallas had a good point on facebook that sprang up from twitter: GLAAD got completely bent out of shape, immediately, over some rural, conservative, unabashedly Christian for saying "vile stereotypes," but they have yet to utter a syllable about Alec Baldwin's oft-repeated, clearly anti-gay insults. And, almost comically, the only thing that could be remotely a "vile stereotype" that he said in the interview (at least what was published) was that your asshole is not there to put a dick in it. Newsflash, people: most people have no interest in anal sex. That's not a stereotype, that's just reality.

The obsession that some straight people have with anal sex as it pertains to their anti-gay prejudice and religious bigotry belies their ignorance or lack of self examination. Half of all gay people (as well as half of all straight people) have no penis. To claim that your objection to homosexuality is based in anal sex is nothing short of stupid. Most gay men think that cunnilingus is revolting but they don't put "marriage" in quotation marks because of it.

I would add that the free market tells us that if straight women aren't into anal sex, straight men certainly are. Heterosexual porn is full of male on female anal sex.

[Billy Jingo]

I would add that the free market tells us that if straight women aren't into anal sex, straight men certainly are. Heterosexual porn is full of male on female anal sex.

Men can only think of one thing. The joystick. Is it big enough, and where can they put it?

~ Maggie from Northern Exposure

[Novaheart]

He was talking in caricature. It was like reading the original lyrics of Old Kentucky Home.

The last bit sounds like someone not aware that irony died on 9/11.

"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."

Except the people who invented it.

When I was a child in rural Maryland, my only exposure to black people was black adults who were working. Seriously, Celeste will recall when I was about five years old there was a black child in a store, and I turned to Celeste and asked, "Cell, what is that?" Respectable black adults may have been called by their first names, but they had a position in society that was not the lowest rank and were not treated with the contempt reserved for White Trash. White children understood that black adults, were adults and were to be respected and obeyed.

The anger towards black people didn't really show up until the late sixties when militancy found its way to small town. That's how I remember it.

BTW, yes there was a lynching in my hometown long before I was born. Something the "historians" at Howard University always leave out was that the man who was lynched had been convicted of murder.

[Adam]

Not sure I really care about the gotcha aspect of Alec Baldwin getting fired and Phil Duckcall just getting suspended. And for my part, I think Phil has a better grasp of 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 than most evangelizing Christians (although it is incomplete, in my opinion).

Regardless, he gets to be a martyr for a bit. Might bring back some of that audience that was drifting away.

That's not what I (or Dallas) was getting at. Baldwin eventually got fired after Andrew Sullivan and a bunch of others shamed BSDNC into firing him, and that whole time, the rest of the gay mafia sat silent because Baldwin toes their political line. By contrast, GLAAD and the like cranked up this outrage within hours of this article getting published, entirely because this guy is unabashedly conservative and unabashedly Christian.

[Adam]

The obsession that some straight people have with anal sex as it pertains to their anti-gay prejudice and religious bigotry belies their ignorance or lack of self examination. Half of all gay people (as well as half of all straight people) have no penis. To claim that your objection to homosexuality is based in anal sex is nothing short of stupid. Most gay men think that cunnilingus is revolting but they don't put "marriage" in quotation marks because of it.

Well, it's a damn good thing that I didn't make that claim, isn't it?

I would add that the free market tells us that if straight women aren't into anal sex, straight men certainly are. Heterosexual porn is full of male on female anal sex.

Ummmm.... no. Sorry. Your occasional porn flick that shows some guy engaging some girl in anal sex does not in any way indicate that there is a large population of straight males out there who are interested in doing the same thing. The overwhelming majority of people have no interest in that whatsoever.

[Michele]

Not sure I really care about the gotcha aspect of Alec Baldwin getting fired and Phil Duckcall just getting suspended. And for my part, I think Phil has a better grasp of 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 than most evangelizing Christians (although it is incomplete, in my opinion).

Regardless, he gets to be a martyr for a bit. Might bring back some of that audience that was drifting away.

Huh..I keep hearing that Duck Dynasty is the most watched show on cable tv and a "ratings juggernaut for A&E".

[Michele]

How is Phil Robertson's beliefs on homosexuality any different from the lefts new beloved; Pope Francis?