On Thursday, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal (R-LA) said he remembered a time when TV networks believed in the First Amendment, expressing that it was “messed up” that Duck Dynasty patriarch Phil Robertson got suspended for what were deemed as “anti-gay” remarks while Miley Cyrus’s twerking and sexualization of foam fingers on more prominent national television networks have been tolerated and rewarded.
“Phil Robertson and his family are great citizens of the State of Louisiana. The politically correct crowd is tolerant of all viewpoints, except those they disagree with,” Jindal said in a statement. “I don’t agree with quite a bit of stuff I read in magazine interviews or see on TV. In fact, come to think of it, I find a good bit of it offensive.”
Jindal continued and said that unlike the “politically correct crowd,” he acknowledges “that this is a free country and everyone is entitled to express their views.”
“In fact, I remember when TV networks believed in the First Amendment,” Jindal concluded. “It is a messed up situation when Miley Cyrus gets a laugh, and Phil Robertson gets suspended.”
Jindal joins the likes of former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who emphatically said on Wednesday evening that Robertson’s suspension was an attack on free speech, which she said was “an endangered species.”
“Those ‘intolerants’ hatin’ and taking on the Duck Dynasty patriarch for voicing his personal opinion are taking on all of us,” she wrote.
As Breitbart News Editor-at-Large John Nolte wrote, Robertson was explicitly “talking about homosexual sexual behavior, not homosexuals as human beings. That is all the difference in the world.”
“It is quite obvious that Robertson is only guilty of being anti-sin, not anti-gay,” Nolte wrote on Breitbart.com. “You might disagree with Robertson, and you might not like what he or the Christian Bible have to say, but Robertson was as anti-gay as he was anti-heterosexual, and that is the very opposite of bigotry.” Robertson’s full remarks as recorded by GQ were:
“Everything is blurred on what’s right and what’s wrong… Sin becomes fine. 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.” Robertson then paraphrased Corinthians from the Bible: “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.”
And if that wasn’t explicit enough, the “Duck Commander” added: “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.”