It was reported earlier today that over 1.4 million people on various Facebook pages were supporting a boycott of A&E for suspending Duck Dynasty star Phil Robertson. That’s four times the 365,000 who’ve signed up for Obamacare. I’m not surprised. After all, unlike healthcare.gov, those Facebook pages actually work. 🙂
Duck Dynasty merchandise is flying off the shelves of Wal-Marts across the country. That expression of support has unintended consequences, however. A&E owns the Duck Dynasty brand, so they profit from those sales. Phil’s supporters should be buying only the Duck Commander merchandise, the brand that belongs to the Robertson family.
So you know where I’m coming from: I’m an atheist and I support gay marriage. But when I read the portion of Robertson’s GQ interview that led to all the outrage and his “indefinite suspension” by A&E, my reaction was, “Seriously? That’s what all the fuss is about??”
Except for the vagina-anus comparison and the more good ole boy tone, what Robertson said pretty much mirrors what Pope Francis has said: sex other than between a man and a woman in holy matrimony is a sin — but “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?”
Pope Francis was named person of the year by a gay rights magazine for not hating gays (even though he “stridently opposes same-sex marriage”) and has become the darling of the once stridently anti-Catholic left (mostly, I suspect, because he stridently opposes capitalism).
Phil Robertson, who also doesn’t hate gays, but (like the Pope) thinks they’re sinners, and who thinks vaginas are preferable to anuses (but tempers that comment with the disclaimer “That’s just me”), is being banished from cable television for daring to state his beliefs.
I must say I’m starting to feel sorry for Christians in today’s America. The intelligentsia, ruling class, intolerant secular left — whatever you want to call them — seem to be emulating the Islamists in demanding that Christians not be allowed to profess their beliefs in public.
But I suspect that the LGBT-whatever community and the secular left are making a big mistake with this sort of nonsense. I think the Facebook likes and merchandise sales are just the very beginning of a big backlash that may be coming.