DUCK!

After a day's media firestorm Phil Robertson has been suspended from his own TV show, Duck Dynasty, as punishment for offensive comments published in GQ magazine. The headline version of the story is that Robertson, the "Duck Commander" and patriarch of the duck-call family business, has been punished for what he said about male homosexuality. Other interesting comments have been reported, but one wonders whether these alone would have sent him to the corner. Moreover, I wonder why anyone is shocked to hear such things from someone who looks like Phil Robertson. Usually I only see that type at gun-rights rallies, but I guess that shows the sort of hopeless city folk I am. Anyway, judge Robertson for yourselves. Here are quotes from his GQ interview. Which do you find the most offensive?

On homosexuality:

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.

 

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Everything is blurred on what’s right and what’s wrong. Sin becomes fine. 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. 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.

On the history of race-relations:

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.

On the positive influence of Christianity, proved negatively:

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 eighty 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.

The sad part of it all is the certainty I feel that with some people Robertson will emerge from this more popular than ever.