Whatever one thinks of Duck Commander Phil Robertson’s recent remarks (and let’s be honest, his references to human anatomy could have used some nuance and his comments on race were rashly insensitive), there’s at least one element in this hubbub that’s going underemphasized, but that should be appreciated: Morality. Merely defending the right of Robertson to make these comments without defending the underlying rightness of his comments (leaving aside the comments on race) is to deny the full monty of this story.
A lot of the defenses of Robertson’s comments omit any discussion of the merit of Robertson’s views on human sexuality. Most applaud Robertson from the virtue of viewpoint diversity, pluralism, and free speech. In essence, commenters seem to either intentionally or unintentionally bracket the moral reasoning or merit of Robertson’s comments, implicitly cowing to today’s sexual relativism.
Morality matters.
Yes, morality matters. So does holiness. Holiness matters a whole lot.
The part of this that nobody seems to be talking about is the fact that the GQ writer chose to put these parts of the interview in the story, and that at least one editor allowed it to go to press. Presumably someone in the chain of command knew what could happen, and either didn’t care or wanted to harm Mr. Robertson.
If there’s a silver lining in this cloud, it’s the visible level of hate towards Mr. Robertson himself, to Holy Scripture, and to God. Uncle Screwtape should be alarmed, because it clearly shows what forces are really behind this agenda.
Perhaps the most overlooked thing in Phil’s comments is that he never, ever singled out homosexuals – he referred to many other sins as well.
“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,†he says. Then he paraphrases Corinthians: “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.â€
Homsexuality, bestiality, and fornication (“sleeping around with this woman and that woman and that woman and those men”, which is HETERO sex) are all mentioned one after another. They are not compared or given specific weighting, they’re just identified as sins. As are, in the following sentence, “idolaters, male prostitutes, ….. the greedy, the drunkards, the slanderers, the swindlers”
It would appear that GLAAD and the entire liberal/LGBT front are bending over backwards [no pun intended] in order to be offended. They seem to believe that criticism of them is more significant than that of drunkards [Charlie Sheen had a fit about Phil’s “homosex” comments; he would have done better to focus on what he’s familiar with, drunkenness) or swindlers (how dare Phil imply that Bernie Madoff did anything wrong) or fornicators (can you even imagine how many of the folks on the left fall into this category? Just look at all the support “twerking” has gotten……..) and slanderers (recall all the riots that didn’t take place over the “piss Christ” or the “dung covered Madonna?”).
And Phil himself did NOT condemn these actions. He said, quite properly, that they are condemned by God [in the scriptures]. And he said that he doesn’t judge anyone; he leaves that to God.
I truly wish it was possible to force the 99.99% of people who have condemned Phil without reading the entire GQ article to do so, and to do so with an open mind – meaning that words are taken as said, rather than what the reader infers/implies from them.
This is a real, teaching moment. If you meet someone who is firmly anti-Phil, ask if they’ve read his actual words – and if they’ve read them without a previous bias about conservative Christians bashing [only] homosexuals.