Chances are, by now, you’ve probably heard about the controversy surrounding A&E’s hit show Duck Dynasty. The show itself revolves around an eccentric Louisiana family who, despite a multimillion dollar duck hunting conglomerate, live as bayou bumpkins while smashing television ratings along the way. Most recently, the family patriarch Phil Robertson made anti-LGBTQ remarks in an interview with GQ sending reality entertainment and the show’s fans reeling. But Scott Lively, unlikely candidate for Governor of Massachusetts in 2014, released a statement in support of Robertson’s slander.
Lively is a noted anti-LGBTQ activist himself, having traveled the world “preaching” and discouraging all sexual unions outside of authentic marriage.
In response to Robertson’s comments, Lively dispatched a press release in which he noted “Duck Dynasty star Phil Robertson has at least one defender in the ‘progressive’ heart of New England.”
Robertson’s distasteful quotes to GQ were in regards to his devout Christian faith, which he found after abusing alcohol and hitting bottom. Upon becoming sober, he founded the massively successful duck hunting enterprise Duck Commander.
Affirming his Christian beliefs to GQ, he told the men’s style magazine,
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. 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.
Robertson has since been suspended from the network until further notice and his statements have induced a polarizing response amongst the Duck Dynasty faithful; some for Robertson, some against, but few if any in between.
Lively, though, is on the front lines of those in support of Robertson, despite the likelihood that it will diminish any iota of a semblance of a chance he had of succeeding Governor Deval Patrick in Massachusetts.
“What Phil Robertson said is just plain Bible truth,” said Lively in a statement. “Men and women were designed to be complimentary sexual partners but ‘gay’ sex is self-evidently disordered and harmful. No amount of heavy-handed propaganda by the leftist media or harassment of pro-family advocates by pro-’gay’ bullies can change that simple fact. My guess is that the A&E network has bitten off more Duck than it can chew by firing Phil Robertson and is already starting to choke on it.”
Robertson has since apologized for his remarks to the Duck Dynasty audience and to the network, backtracking and calling them “unfiltered comments to the reporter were coarse.” What will happen to Robertson and his participation in the show still remains to be seen.
