In a recent interview with GQ, the
patriarch of the Duck Dynasty television hit, Phil Robertson, ruffled some feathers that landed him in some hot water. So much has been made of the statements, that it caused the producers of the Duck Dynasty show on A&E to issue a statement, explaining that Mr Phil Robertson was fired, terminated or placed on permanent hiatus from the show.
“We are extremely disappointed to have read Phil Robertson’s comments in GQ, which are based on his own personal beliefs and are not reflected in the series Duck Dynasty,” the statement from A&E reads. “His personal views in no way reflect those of A+E Networks, who have always been strong supporters and champions of the LGBT community. The network has placed Phil under hiatus from filming indefinitely.”
Variety in their title heading reported that Robertson had been “fired,” but in their report stated:
While the cast member has not officially been fired, he will not be filming with the show moving forward.
In a graphic and ugly interview, the 67-year old Louisiana patriarch of the Duck Dynasty clan had compared homosexuality to bestiality, adultery, prostitution, alcoholism, lying, stealing — and terrorism. He also, unsurprisingly, said gay people are not going to heaven.
And then, there was this remark:
“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.”
But in the GQ interview, Robertson also made insensitive and troubling remarks about black people during the Jim Crow era:
“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.”
