A reader responds to the Duck Dynasty uproar:
So I had seen the headlines, a bit on the story in various places, and then your post – I completely agree with you. (I also assure you that as I bear, I was not unduly swayed by his massive beardage.) But as the day progressed, I heard Chris Mathews, Jon Stewart, Colbert and various other people right/left in the cableverse and realized we’ve been duped. This is a PR move to get more hard-right viewers. Phil Robertson is not fired, as some have said. He’s suspended, “after the season has wrapped,” yet before the season premieres. I will bet you anything that he will be unsuspended before the next season. They are simply drumming up ratings. They will have the biggest season premiere ever. In the end, it’s TV – that’s what matters.
Another reader:
Want to know what fundamentalist Christians think about us gay folks? Read the comments on the Duck Dynasty Facebook page. This event has unleashed the absolute hate they feel towards us. Apparently criticizing someone for anti-gay remarks is now hate speech.
I have a couple of things to add. The first is that the racial aspects of Phil Robertson’s remarks are being underplayed. To celebrate segregation as a means to African-American happiness seems to me a truly dark and asinine piece of self-centered racism. It really casts into serious doubt the essential charm of a fundamentalist Christian. The second is that I’m a little stunned by the vehemence of the right’s reaction. I agree with them on the substance. I think it’s preposterous to fire a reality show star for being real. But does the GOP really want to rally behind someone who truly talks of gays the way medieval anti-Semites spoke of Jews? Do they really want to embrace someone who believes the civil rights movement has hurt African-Americans? Over the last day or so, with such unqualified and righteous defenses of Robertson, it seems to me the GOP is jumping a very large shark. It’s as if the year of relentless, decisive advances in gay civil rights has prompted an emotional venting which is as informed by victimology as anything on the p.c. left.
Another reader also scrutinizes Robertson’s right-wing supporters:
I realize that conservatives are playing hard on Phil Robertson’s religious liberty and freedom of speech, but this is a huge straw man. What is at stake here is not Mr. Robertson’s ability to speak freely or hold a particular religious interpretation. What is at stake is A&E’s potential profits in airing a show featuring a person with these beliefs. Conservatives are always about free markets. No one is telling Mr. Robertson to change his beliefs, but he is not entitled to make large amounts of money simply because of them. His show has to win in the market place, same as any other show. Conservatives can lament that “values” have “fallen” to a point where a show featuring Mr. Robertson is not profitable, but the fact that it might not be is a free-market truth, not an infringement on his ability to go home and live out his days freely speaking and judging “the Shintos”.
Update from a reader:
As a 44-year-old gay man living in a town of 35,000 in northwest Georgia, let me offer my take on the recent controversy. Phil Robertson’s comments, along with the Chic-Fil-A brouhaha last year, only remind me, painfully, that many people, whom I care about as friends and coworkers, consider me as beneath them, as worthy of condemnation, as unworthy of God’s love or blessing. They don’t hesitate to share those feelings in break rooms and Facebook posts and general conversations and, particularly, behind my back. And they see no problem with that. After all, it’s in the Bible, right? But of course they don’t want to hurt me! Somehow they have convinced themselves that they can loudly proclaim their beliefs about these matters but not make it personal to the people at whom they are directed.
I live here by choice. This is my hometown, as much my home as theirs. And I don’t censor myself around them either. But controversies like this, which might seem quaint to those in larger cities and with more supportive environments, are extremely painful and frustrating to me. They remind me that I am, and will likely remain, the Other, not a part of the community where I have lived, in many cases, longer than they.
So while everyone else discusses the First Amendment and whether he has a right to say this or that, I will once again remind myself that I am not part of this community, that they would rather voice their support for a man they’ve never met rather than acknowledge the humanity of someone they know and proclaim to care about. Yeah, I’m a little down and depressed about it. My guess is you would be too.
The Dish 