UPDATE: Not surprisingly, Sarah Palin has weighed in, demonstrating her trademark ignorance (of the First Amendment, in this case).
“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,” Palin wrote.
Wrong again, Sarah Palin, though the whole controversy is pretty silly.
The A&E channel says “Duck Dynasty” patriarch Phil Robertson is off the show indefinitely after condemning gays as sinners in a magazine interview.
In a statement Wednesday, A&E said it was extremely disappointed to read Robertson’s comments in GQ magazine.
I’ve never watched “Duck Dynasty” (bunch of rednecks shooting ducks, sounds thrilling), but from what I understand Robertson has been pretty open about his beliefs. I don’t agree with them, but A&E knew what they were getting.
Don’t shed any tears for Robertson, however. He’s en route to a lucrative career as a Fox-sponsored martyr, a Joe the Plumber for the next election cycle.
You’re right. If he wanted to keep his job, he shouldn’t have said what he said. But the reason conservatives like this guy is because he says what he thinks, TV show and political correctness be damned. He’ll continue to be followed by many. I’m not a fan of the show, but there’s a part of me that has to admire the brutal honesty of Robertson and his family. In a way, it’s very refreshing.
When Yale University Press published “The Cartoons that Shook the World” in 2011, they made a last-minute decision not to include the very cartoons the book expounds upon. That is self-censorship.
Mark Steyn and a colleague were prosecuted in Canada for public statements that were mildly critical of Islam. He prevailed after about 3 years and about $150,000.00 in attorney fees. That is governmental censorship, and while you may think it can’t happen here, it most certainly can.
Speech codes are in place at many, many colleges and universities. Five (5) or six (6) years ago, a male student at Brown looked out his dorm window and saw a group of girls protesting something or other. He jeered them and derisively called them “water buffaloes”. He was suspended for it.
These, and 10,000 more examples, are why conservatives are so quick to rile on speech issues.
Americans are entitled to espouse a strict construction of the Bible if they so choose, and not lose their job over it. A&E’s initial decision was anti-Christian, and many of the 215,000,000 Christians in the U.S. are weary of the steady drumbeat in Western culture equating Christianity with ignorance and bigotry. Being a person of faith is not bigotry. I understand libertines are uncomfortable with the idea that they will be judged by God, but society makes judgments about behavior every day. That’s what a society is, and what it does.
Christianity is under assault all over the world, including America. That is the real point.
Liberals are permitted to rationalize whatever conduct or speech they are impelled to engage in. Why are conservatives held to a different standard?