The future of A&E's popular reality show Duck Dynasty is in question after the network suspended the show's patriarch, Phil Robertson, for comments he made about homosexuality.
The controversy continues to build over his comments about race relations in rural Louisiana during his childhood that evoked heated response from civil rights organizations.
And the debate has heightened with the surfacing of a 50-minute,(Above) 2010 video in which he gives a sermon of sorts in Pennsylvania that contains further contentious comments on homosexuality.
Uploaded to YouTube in March 2013 by a Texas woman with nothing but "Love" for Robertson, the lengthy video showcases the duck caller's impassioned feelings about "shameful lust" in America (He goes on the rant after the 17-minute mark.):
"Women with women. Men with men. They committed indecent acts with one another. And they received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion. They're full of murder, envy, strife, hatred. They are insolent, arrogant, god haters, they are heartless, they are faithless, they are senseless, they are ruthless, they invent ways of doing evil!
That's what you have 235 years, roughly, after your forefathers founded the country. So what are you going to do, Pennsylvania? Just run with them? You're going to die. Don't forget that."
If you can stand to listen to the entire video, the beginning of the rant also has some really, um... (interesting?) cultural commentary that puts God, the Constitution, and fried chicken together into the mix.
I knew the reality series was popular, as everywhere you go now there is something with these guy's pictures on it...door mats, kitchen towels, lamp shades even, but this stunned me and gives me a sad:
"“Duck Dynasty” has been a ratings juggernaut for A&E, recently drawing around 9 million viewers for its Christmas special."
Seriously, 9 million?!?
I'm afraid that the Defamer may be calling this one correctly:
"We still do not stand for this behavior," A&E will say again today, and yet, of course they will. They've done it before. They didn't stand for Duane Chapman's racism when they halted production on Dog the Bounty Hunter in 2007, only to reinstate the show three months later. Because if it looks like a racist, sounds like a homophobe, and makes A&E lots of money, don't worry: it'll be back.
And if it walks like a duck, and talks like a duck...oh, nevermind.
