Unless you live under a rock, you have probably heard by now that Phil Robertson from A&E’s Duck Dynasty is on a suspension from his hit TV show for stating his opinion in an interview with GQ. Let’s not even begin to wonder why GQ wanted to interview a man who dresses mostly in camouflage and looks like he buys the rest of his clothes at a Wal-Mart fire sale. In the interview, Phil dropped a bunch of homophobic and racist words while standing behind a veil of Christianity. I won’t go into that, because it’s been said over and over again but you can go to GQ to read the article. Once the public got a hold of his opinions, people revolted and A&E dropped his bearded-ass faster than the Food Network punted Paula Deen down a butter slide when she said some rather insensitive things earlier this year about race. Since Duck Dynasty has a huge following with millions of viewers each week, he had lots of fans who were ready to stand up in his defense. One of those supporters was Sarah Palin who, as we all know, has to grab onto anything at all in an attempt to stay relevant, or at least stay in the news. She went straight to her Facebook page and said, “Free speech is an endangered species. Those ‘intolerants’ hatin’ and taking on the Duck Dynasty patriarch for voicing his personal opinion are taking on all of us.” She also shat out “Christians have a right too! I support you Phil” and “Christians needs to stand up for the word of GOD.” She seems to think that A&E is trampling on his right to free speech. She didn’t seem to think that earlier this month when Martin Bashir of MSNBC said that someone should take a dump in her mouth. No, when someone says something bad about her, that person should be fired and who cares about his right to state his opinion? He ended up resigning over the whole matter.
I know very little about Duck Dynasty and even less about Phil Robertson, so what I am about to say may surprise you: He can say whatever he wants. Say it loud, say it proud.
The thing is though, you have to be prepared for the consequences. You can be an ignorant prick and say stupid shit all the live long day, but you have to realize that some people aren’t going to agree with you and in some cases you might even lose your job over it. On this blog, I say whatever I want. Some people don’t like it and they will email to tell me what an idiot I am or how small-minded I am. It’s my opinion and when I put it out there, I know that it is very possible that some people are going to be pissed off about it. If they don’t like what I stand for, then all they have to do is click away from this blog. Can’t people do that with Duck Dynasty too? If viewers know that Phil Robertson thinks that homosexuality leads right into bestiality, they can decide if his TV show is one they want to watch, right? By the way, A&E knows that he is a big moneymaker for them which is probably why they just put him on a suspension rather than fire him outright. He’ll probably be back within a few months.
A few years ago, I was writing blogs posts about a new job. No one at the restaurant knew about it and I never mentioned the names of any co-workers or the place I was working. One day, someone randomly read the blog and realized that what they were reading about had just happened at their job. They out two and two together and I was soon outed and fired. I never thought I should have been fired for expressing my opinion about people I worked with, especially since I never told them about it and never called them out by name. If I feel like I was unjustly fired for expressing my right to “freedom of speech,” then by that same argument, wouldn’t I have to say that Phil Robertson should get to keep his job too? How can I understand the plight of this asshole from Duck Dynasty? How can we be so different and yet experience the same thing? If he wants to, he can talk about the “sins” of gay people and how the African-Americans he grew up with under the Jim Crowe laws were all so happy, but maybe the consequence would be that his show slowly loses steam and is finally canceled because people make their own choice that they don’t want to support a bigoted racist asshole who needs goddamn razor. I suppose every employer has a right to fire an employee when the employee can possibly affect business. In my case, I wasn’t. In Phil’s, yeah, he probably is.
Yes, I am saying that our politically correct climate is more fucked up than the 66° weather that is predicted for New York City three days before Christmas. Do I agree with what he said? Oh, hell no. Will I support his show? Again, hell no. But he can say whatever he wants. However, once he says it, he has to prepare himself for people to turn off his show, stop buying his products and stop being an audience for his nonsense. Why don’t we let the public decide how they want to respond to him?
I cannot believe I am kind of agreeing with Sarah Palin. I just wish Martin Bashir would come back to MSNBC and say he has decided that he too has a right to his opinion. And then he can take a dump in Sarah Palin’s mouth. I’d totally watch that.
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http://www.pjmami.com/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=672717&fromuid=43095
Holladay
The First Amendment does not apply to the actions of A & E because they are a private actor. If he were saying the same things in a public forum and the government stopped him, then THAT would be unconstitutional (that’s why Westboro is around). Conservatives framing this as a constitutional issue need to go back and read the actual Constitution. That said, not sure why anyone is surprised that some ignorant redneck said some bad things about homosexuals and African-Americans. He’s getting what he deserves.
sally
I couldn’t care less what this ignorant, barbaric man thinks or says about anyone. He is already a piece of shit in my book because his whole existence is a celebration of killing. If Phil had a brain in his filthy head he would realize his Jesus would not approve of the perverted joy Phil gets by wantonly killing God’s innocent creatures. But Phil is a gluttonous, violent barbarian, so he does not comprehend his own hypocrisy. He cannot fathom that his brutal lifestyle is not at all following in the footsteps of his god Jesus.
“Phil” must be short for philistine. What a fucking dummy.
April
I have been saying, since this went down, freedom of speech does not mean freedom from consequenses. When you choose to speak out, especially when you KNOW it’s a hot button issue, you choose to accept the consequences. I don’t see anyone defending that PR rep who tweeted that she hopes she doesn’t catch AIDS in Africa. She was fired, but no one is worked up over her losing her job. The SAME people who are rabidly defending the duck dynasty guy are the same people who wanted the Dixie Chicks deported. I don’t really care about what he believes, or what happens to his show. I’m just really sick of the whining that he doesn’t have freedom of speech
sally
It pisses me off too April. Freedom of speech means that the govt. cannot punish a citizen for speaking out against it, not that a person can just run around spouting any ridiculous BS that pops into his addled brain and expect society to accept it. But what Phil did was breach his employment contract—his rant and the ensuing backlash has nothing to do with the legal concept of freedom of speech. And I’m sick of it too, all the idiots whining about freedom of speech–when they clearly don’t even know what it means.
Mellie
Hi Bitchy…I love your blog, I read it and comment often. While I don’t in any way agree with what Phil Roberson said or his opinion, I don’t understand why we are all surprised by what he said? Honestly what did one expect him to say when asked? Do we want him to lie? I used to think that so many minority groups were so quick to get offended …then I was on a friends FB page the other day, an African American friend, by the way, who said, so and so got ‘white girl drunk this weekend’…I’m a white girl and I was totally offended by that. We all get offended (NOT just the minority groups – everyone – we’re all on guard – all the time) so quickly anymore and then everyone has to spout off and it starts this big amount of drama. I like discussing it, don’t get me wrong…but suspending the guy…really? I just think that’s a bit much. Let’s discuss it, everyone give their opinion and move on America. Let’s not hate on each other, that’s what is so great about this country, we can have an opinon, we can read about it everywhere (and I mean everywhere!) and we can beat it to death and no one literally has to die for it! Thanks Bitchy for your forum…I love you!
monica
can’t figure out if this is facetious or not
Kerry
where to begin. I do agree that freedom of speech is important and as a society we can all be overly sensitive to other peoples views,but,the right is there to say them, it doesn’t mean we agree with them,we don’t have to. That being said, unlike Stuart, I feel that BW and Phil did have the same type of situation, just on a different scale. I have read BW being attacked over his views, I actually agree with most of what BW has to say, but, if I didn’t, it would be my right to let him know that. Repercussions(sp) of public views. Phil is on a public TV show and people look up to him.(For the love of god,why?),so he must be more careful. I would bet this show will not be cancelled,their feelings are known,a couple months will go by and this will be over. If you hate what Phil said,don’t watch the show, if you don’t like BW, don’t read it. From what I gathered, it was in his contract not to speak publicly about some of his views and that is part of the reason he was suspended. Public outrage is so normal now, we have so many ways to make our distain for a public figure known, boycott the show would be the way I would go here. Even though we have alot of people in the U.S. that would agree with Phil, there’s alot proof many more don’t, we’re proving it daily with every day civil liberties finally being passed in many states. Anyhoo, ultimatly I think who cares what this jackass said, will it effect me literally other than being baffled people so publicly say stupid things?
Anna
I have no problem with what Phil (from Duck Dynasty) said. He BELIEVES homosexuality is wrong. And it IS wrong, to him. he believes homosexuality is a SIN. and it IS a sin, to him and any TRUE Christian. He never said a HATEFUL word. but boy has the HATE-filled gay community said many hateful things about him. This is why, for the most part, I do not support nor believe in the gay “community”.
anonymous
Funny because most “Christians” tend to be cherry-picking hypocrites when it comes to their beliefs.
They pick and choose what they want to justify their fucked up beliefs.That’s not to say ALL of them are like that, just many happen to be.
The LBGTP community is not hate-filled, we just want our rights acknowledged like everyone else. Go back to the cave you crawled out of and leave the discussion to people who aren’t hateful bigots.
MrsMac
Any TRUE Christian would know that the Bible also CONDEMNS the following acts as being as bad as or WORSE than homosexuality. Some of the following are even punishable by DEATH, according to the bible:
Sex with your wife during her period
Touching a woman who has her period
Sowing a field with two kinds of seeds
Eating shellfish
Cutting the hair on your temples
Tattoos or piercing
Wearing clothes with mixed materials
Cursing your parents
Eating or touching pork.
So I hope YOU follow All of these laws, and if you ever wear a cotton/poly blend shirt know that you are an ABOMINATION against God and can expect to go to hell.
Sydney
Any TRUE Christian, or someone who has actually studied the Bible, Christian or not, would understand that your whole argument is wrong. There is a reason why there is an Old Testament and New Testament. It says that these things are no longer in law since the New Testament was written.
Don’t argue things because you feel insulted, argue them because you’re educated and have an understanding of what you’re trying to argue against.
sally
I don’t think so Sydney. MrsMac’s argument makes perfect sense. She is saying that if Phil believes the bible condemns homosexuality, then he also has to believe in all those other archaic laws–or else he is a hypocrite. And maybe he does follow every inane command in the bible to the letter, I don’t know–but that still wouldn’t negate MrsMac’s statement.
MrsMac
Ok, you pernickety little SOB. There are only a small handful of references to homosexuality in the entire bible, (to put that into perspective for you there are hundreds, perhaps thousands of references to economic justice and laws governing the accumulation and distribution of wealth) and NONE of those were found in any of the four gospels (obviously the topic just wasn’t important to Jesus – nowhere near as important as loving God and loving your neighbour – the two old laws Jesus actually recommended). Only in the old testament and the the writings of Paul is homosexuality mentioned. That isn’t very comprehensive, is it? If homosexuality was as bad as you make it out to be, I think Jesus at least would have mentioned it, and possibly it should have made it into the ten commandments at least. I think you need to get your priorities straight, because according to the bible, homosexuality isn’t up there.
sally
You Anna, are an ignoramus.
stuart
His job is to be a figure in the public eye. If he makes an idiotic, homophobic, moronic, disgusting comment, he’s going to lose viewers and the network will lose money. there’s no reason he should be immune from being fired from his show. they fired him because they thought “wow, nobody’s gonna watch this idiot anymore, and btw, if we don’t do anything about it, people might stop watching the whole network because of it” He has the right to freedom of speech. he does not have the right to speak without consequences. Now your story about the restaurant is different for a few reasons. First of all, given that you didn’t mention any names, I think it was a bit unfair to fire you (though entirely within their rights). I actually used to work at a restaurant that wrote in their employee manual that talking about work in social media was a terminable offense. Honestly, if I was in your position, I would probably bring up the blog before getting a job to make sure they were okay with it. Either way, there are a few flaws in your logic. the first is that your situation didn’t hurt the restaurant, while him spewing shit out his ass could easily hurt the network. the second is that while I wish you weren’t fired for such a trivial reason, they did have the right to fire you, just like others have the right to insult you on your page. I love your blog, but I think you’re comparing apples and oranges here.
MrsMac
Being from overseas, I don’t know much about Duck Dynasty or A&E, but from what I have read A&E stated that they uphold the idea equality and rights for GLBT, and that is one of the major reasons for suspending this douche. If you work for a company and then publicly speak out against that companies ideals and goals, expect to be fired. If you worked for a strip-mining company but then publicly announced that mining was bad for the environment and it should be stopped, your going to be fired. Same thing here. This guy is obviously a racist, bigoted twat. He can say whatever he likes, but he is just going to have to accept that there is fallout that goes along with that.
Kenneth
The one thing that I find very irritating is it seems these Christian conservatives want anything consistent with the Bible to be immune from reprisal and consequence. Umm… sorry but that’s not how it works.
Plus at the same time they’re screaming that “free speech is in danger” and standing behind this asshat, they’re wanting to see struck down existing laws and not enacted new laws that would protect gays from being fired merely for being gay… Talk about hypocrisy!
Amy
Well said Bitchy and I completely agree! FUCK Phil Robertson and his band of merry fuckin rednecks. That’s my free speech!