{"id":983,"date":"2013-12-20T11:02:26","date_gmt":"2013-12-20T16:02:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/?p=983"},"modified":"2013-12-20T11:02:26","modified_gmt":"2013-12-20T16:02:26","slug":"a-non-ideological-look-at-the-phil-robertson-controversy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2013\/12\/a-non-ideological-look-at-the-phil-robertson-controversy.html","title":{"rendered":"A Non-Ideological Look at the Phil Robertson Controversy"},"content":{"rendered":"

With his characteristic bluntness, Phil Robertson of Duck Dynasty<\/i> warned the rest of us against being \u201cdeceived\u201d by those who would have us think that \u201cadulterers, the idolaters, the male prostitutes, the homosexual offenders, the greedy, the drunkards, the slanderers, the swindlers\u201d will \u201cinherit the kingdom of God.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Homosexual activist groups have pounced upon Robertson for his \u201cvile\u201d comments and A & E suspended him \u201cindefinitely.\u201d\u00a0 Meanwhile, predictably, high profile Republican figures have sprung to his defense.\u00a0 Palin wrote on her Facebook page: \u201cFree speech is an endangered species.\u00a0 Those \u2018intolerants\u2019 hatin\u2019 and taking on the Duck Dynasty <\/i>patriarch for voicing his personal opinion are taking on all of us.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Let\u2019s think clearly and speak truthfully.<\/span><\/p>\n

First, if the wildly improbable occurs and A & E decides to drop Robertson and\/or his program, then the owners of the network<\/i> would be exercising their <\/i>right to free speech. Robertson\u2019s right to free speech no more requires that his employers keep him employed than Martin Bashir\u2019s right to free speech required that his <\/i>employer, MSNBC, keep him <\/i>employed.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The right to free speech is nothing more or less than an obligation <\/i>on the part of the government <\/i>to refrain from punishing<\/i> individuals for their speech. In other words, free speech is speech that does not come at the cost of a government-imposed penalty.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

No one, as far as I have been able to determine, is trying to convince the government to penalize Robertson or anyone else for his speech. In fact, his critics are exercising their <\/i>free speech rights.<\/span><\/p>\n

Second, this being said, that some are \u201coffended\u201d by the speech of others is to be expected in a free association of self-governing actors. It is precisely because of the heterogeneity of views that are sure to proliferate in such an association that a right<\/i> to free speech exists in the first place. \u00a0But not only is it expected that, say, the spokespersons for GLAAD would find Robertson\u2019s remarks \u201cvile;\u201d it is also utterly irrelevant that they do so. <\/span><\/p>\n

Third, like it or not, Robertson said nothing that hasn\u2019t, in one way or other, already been said in the Bible and by the entire Christian tradition for the last 2,000 years. If he deserves to be condemned for echoing the Bible and his faith tradition, then so too do the latter deserve the same.\u00a0 His critics won\u2019t go so far as to take the entire Christian tradition to task for being \u201canti-gay,\u201d for in doing so they know that they will actually undermine their cause by alienating untold numbers of people.\u00a0 Instead, they treat one man <\/i>as if he is some sort of moral aberration.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Yet it isn\u2019t just Christianity that has always treated homosexuality as morally problematic: every ethical tradition the world over has done so as well.\u00a0 The Bible, let us never forget, was written almost<\/i> exclusively by Jews, and close to 80% of it consists in what Christians call \u201cThe Old <\/i>Testament.\u201d\u00a0 If Robertson needs to apologize, if he is deserving of contempt for his stance on homosexuality, then Jews need to apologize and they are deserving of contempt for their <\/i>3,000 year stance on it as well. <\/span><\/p>\n

And what about Islam<\/i>?\u00a0 For all of their indignation, Robertson\u2019s critics would never so much as dream about attacking the disciples of Muhammad like they are now attacking him.\u00a0 They wouldn\u2019t dream about attacking Muslims at all.\u00a0 Yet if any ethical tradition in the world today could be said to be \u201canti-gay,\u201d it is Islam, for Muslims not only view homosexuality as an abomination against God; they arrange their societies to insure that homosexuality is regarded as a capital crime. <\/span><\/p>\n

Robertson is not advocating \u201cgay bashing\u201d or any type of conduct, mischievous or otherwise<\/i>. Whether one agrees with Robertson or not, the man is merely expressing what most of the planet\u2019s people, including its most renowned moral teachers, have always taken for granted about homosexuality\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The Bible\u2019s passages on homosexuality lend themselves to more than one interpretation.\u00a0 But considering that it is Robertson\u2019s critics who\u2014perhaps rightly, perhaps incorrectly\u2014are now in defiance of a trans-historical, trans-cultural consensus on the moral character of homosexuality, the burden is on them to be truthful and enlighten, not Robertson, but the world. <\/i><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With his characteristic bluntness, Phil Robertson of Duck Dynasty warned the rest of us against being \u201cdeceived\u201d by those who would have us think that \u201cadulterers, the idolaters, the male prostitutes, the homosexual offenders, the greedy, the drunkards, the slanderers, the swindlers\u201d will \u201cinherit the kingdom of God.\u201d\u00a0 Homosexual activist groups have pounced upon Robertson…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":399,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-983","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nA Non-Ideological Look at the Phil Robertson Controversy<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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