On Thursday, PETA called for the cancellation of Duck Dynasty, one of the most highly-rated shows ever, a day after A&E suspended patriarch Phil Robertson for comments that were deemed to be “anti-gay.”
PETA, which has a history of slamming the show’s cast members for hunting, accused the Duck Dynasty cast of “hating people and animals” and called on A&E to ignore former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s Facebook post that said Robertson’s suspension was an attack on “all of us” because “free speech is an endangered species.”
“PETA wants A&E to do more than suspend one of the characters on Duck Dynasty for damning gays. We call on the channel to challenge the entire crew of duck slayers to ignore Sarah Palin‘s self-serving slap on the back for spewing hate speech and deny that they are as anti-gay as they are anti-animal,” the organization said in a statement. “All people who consider themselves followers of Christ should follow all His teachings–and that includes showing mercy, compassion, and kindness to all of God’s creation, human and nonhuman alike. What’s ‘sinful’ is hating people and animals. PETA asks everyone who consider themselves to be Christian to reject hate speech and call for this show’s cancellation.”
Palin emphasized shortly after Robertson’s suspension was announced that the “intolerants” targeting Robertson were attacking all Americans who value free speech.
Breitbart News Editor-at-Large John Nolte has emphasized that 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 “controversial” comments, 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.”