Mark Steyn on 'Duck Dynasty' Controversy: Gay Lobby Enforcing 'Ideological Compliance'

On Hugh Hewitt’s Thursday radio show, conservative commentator Mark Steyn spoke out against the groups he said were behind the hostile reactions to the remarks made by “Duck Dynasty” star Phil Robertson made to GQ magazine about homosexuality and sin.

“I think in a strange way, this is the biggest story of the day, the week, the month,” Steyn told fill-in host Rep. John Campbell (R-CA). “I’m actually quite worried that we’re moving into an age of extremely heavy-handed ideological compliance. There was nothing this guy said in GQ that I think that should have rendered him banished from the airwaves. And I think it’s interesting that what he said in fact is consistent with his character.”

The syndicated columnist likened Robertson’s suspension from his A&E television program to something out of post-World War II Eastern Europe under Communist rule.

“This is one of the biggest stories of our time – the strange need by the bureau of gay compliance or whatever the gay lobby group is calling itself these days and similar groups to enforce the most tedious ideological compliance,” he said. “It’s like something out of Milan Kundera’s Eastern European novel about post-war communist Europe, The Joke, where you make one little comment and your life is over. And we’re getting to that stage.”

Steyn went on to compare Robertson’s plight to that of former Miss California Carrie Prejean, who in the 2009 Miss USA pageant faced a similar backlash over her opposition to same-sex marriage based. She, like the “Duck Dynasty” patriarch, cited religious beliefs when asked to justify her views. But Steyn pointed out that Prejean at that time held the same stance as President Barack Obama, which Steyn said was a “lie of political convenience” by the President.

“So they let [Obama] get away with it,” said Steyn. “And eventually he said his position had evolved. His position on gayness took longer to evolve than Ricky Martin. It was like watching it in slow motion coming down the track towards you. But the gay lobby let him get away with it because they knew he was always faking it. They thought Carrie Prejean meant it, so they had to destroy her.”

“The idea that somehow this guy needs to be banished from public life for giving his view of growing up as he did just there – that’s crazy,” Steyn added. “It’s about freedom. Every free person should say I’m not going to be told what to think by some gay lobby group or race lobby group or transgender lobby group or Muslim lobby group – or any of them. Nuts to the lot of them.”