So no, I'm not outraged, at least about his gay comments. I've been out of the closet for a while now, and I am keenly aware that there are a bunch of people who have still chosen not to grapple with the fact that their communities are increasingly deciding to be kind to their gay friends, now that they realize they have lots of gay friends and not just lonely straight friends with "long-time roommates" and they're starting to feel a little self-conscious about their place in a shrinking subset of people willing to tell those faggots how it is. What could these other people possibly understand about such perversion that they do not? How could they read the Bible any differently than their gut tells them to?
Here's what he actually said:
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] 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....
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.Honestly, that doesn't come across to me as particularly hateful, just laughably ignorant and embarrassingly revealing for him. It makes me feel sorry for him. He's clearly not thought more than 2 seconds about how other people in the world might be different than him. This is a grown man that understands, theoretically, that all men don't like duck hunting, and all men don't like broccoli but all men not liking vaginas is a mind-boggling revelation forever out of his reach. It makes me feel sorry for the women in his life that love to him is a fixation on genitalia and what you can do to them, rather than an irrational affection for another human being that inspires affectionate physical interaction. Not to mention his bizarre assertion that anyone who has preferences different than his own is behaving illogically, because that's laughably indefensible from a logical point of view. And, honestly, I never get tired of straight men wrinkling their nose at using the anus for sex because it is an organ for waste disposal, but still still ejaculate into their wives through their own filthy, urine-soaked urethras through an organ which is also, scientists have found, used for waste disposal. If he's upset that our waste disposal and reproductive systems have been cross-wired in a manner he finds personally unappealing, he should probably take that up with God, or perhaps a good therapist.
Although, having said that, I suppose people find the hatefulness in the first of those quotes, where he says the Bible says it's not right. But the worst thing he does is compare gays to the greedy, drunks, slanderers and swindlers. Which is an oddly unhumble and unchristian thing to say for a greedy swindler who used to look like this who's currently involved in a contract dispute worth millions of dollars about his super-authentic bearded, duck-hunting lifestyle super-real TV show that he sells you as the truth in front of God and man. And yes, "won't inherit the kingdom of God" is basically code for "does not deserve to be treated politely in civil society", so I can see why people find it hateful. I just personally have a hard time getting worked up about what one bigot from the south has to say about things he doesn't understand. He has a right to profess his profound ignorance of biblical principles, basic decency, and lack of empathy and humility and all the respect those things entail.
So no, I don't find him incredibly hateful in his comments about gays. He didn't say he wanted to kill them or anything. He's just an increasingly marginalized dude who is ridiculously clueless about the diversity and richness of human relationships and how unimportant his particular preferences are in determining what is beautiful and fulfilling for another human being. He basically said, "I can't understand how someone likes something I don't like." And that's just sad.
Actually, I find it a little surprising that considering the banality of his quote on not understanding gay people, more people aren't upset at this quote:
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.
And from this he assumes black people were happier before they got civil rights. Ta-Nehisi Coates has a historical, thoughtful and frank response to this that is worth reading in full:
The black people who Phil Robertson knew were warred upon. If they valued their lives, and the lives of their families, the last thing they would have done was voiced a complaint about "white people" to a man like Robertson. Ignorance is no great sin and one can forgive the good-natured white person for not knowing how all that cannibal sausage was truly made. But having been presented with a set of facts, Robertson's response is to cite "welfare" and "entitlement" as the true culprits.
The belief that black people were at their best when they were being hunted down like dogs for the sin of insisting on citizenship is a persistent strain of thought in this country. This belief reflects the inability to cope with an America that is, at least rhetorically, committed to equality.So outraged? No. Partly because I'm tired of saying "how much?' every time some internet link says "be outraged" (this goes double for "be inspired"). Partly because outrage doesn't really get us anywhere except maybe, MAYBE, he'll be on TV less. And honestly, I think odds are good he'll both he and A&E will come out of this richer due to the resulting ratings spike from all this news coverage. I'm tired of being played, and I suspect that his stupid comments aside, that this is more a manufactured drama. At this point, knowing what we do about how much of reality TV is outright scripted or dishonestly edited, how can we not at least suspect that this might be just another scripted scene in the show, using us and our collective, impotent outrage as unwilling participants?
We're giving him far more coverage than his statements and personal importance deserve. And the entire focus of the conversation is the non-existant persecution of Christians in the U.S., defined here as "people don't love me when state my unsupported beliefs as absolute truth", which completely overshadows the gob-smacking assertion that black americans at threat of lynching for speaking up in the pre-civil rights era were happier than they are today, which apparently isn't even a topic worthy of discussion. If I'm outraged about anything, it's THAT.
