That's Just Your Opinion Man

I guess I find it disturbing that anyone would look to the person described as “the Patriarch of ‘Duck Dynasty’” for advice of a cultural or spiritual nature but apparently this matters. Phil Robertson has offered his opinions on homosexuality (sinful and icky) and race (African Americans were much happier when they were riding in the back of the bus). Fans of the show and conservatives have come to Robertson’s defense on the basis of his 1^st Amendment right to say stupid things; it’s just what he believes, after all, and that should be cool. Chill out, America. I mean, we all know this is what most of the 60-something white men in America believe, don’t we?

 

I used to write quite a bit on pop culture and politics back when I was writing for my brother-in-law Hal’s late, great WavingAlien.com site but I stopped after a while because it just seemed like nothing ever changed. We have become polarized and entrenched in our positions politically and culturally. I grew weary of having to take a side every time somebody did or said something stupid.

Yet, here I am again, taking sides when it all seems so ridiculous that I should have to do so, but here goes.

The fact that Phil Robertson grew up a racist and a homophobe doesn’t excuse his ignorant, bigoted opinions. It was wrong then and he is wrong now. Yes, the 1^st Amendment protects his right to say what he said. It also protects the rights of the people who have taken him to task for being wrong in terms both scientific and historical.

His perspective on race and the status of African Americans in society across the arc of our country’s history is laughable. Perhaps, in fact, he never saw a black man mistreated by a white man growing up in the south. His one-man, anecdotal view hardly erases the history of the racism in America any more than the election of Barack Obama created a post-racial America. Are there Americans who will one day join Holocaust-deniers, claiming that slavery was really a path to citizenship for families that couldn’t afford passage on the steam ships of the day? If you think that possibility is ridiculous I don’t think you’ve been paying attention.

As for his Bible-based opinion that homosexuality is a sin, I would observe that he could use the Bible to also justify slavery, polygamy and human sacrifice. As an atheist, I am not bound by a two thousand year-old text that has been translated, revised and translated again. Nor am I bound by Ptolemy’s view that the Earth is the center of the universe. Instead, I can avail myself of current science on topics as diverse as human sexuality and astrophysics knowing that the quest for meaning and truth is never static.

Those who would defend Robertson on the basis that he was simply “standing up for what he believes in” should acknowledge that slaveholders were simply standing up for what they believed; the proposition that non-whites were inferior to whites justified enslavement of blacks. They might want to consider that the men who tortured and beat Matthew Shepard to death were standing up for what they believed in; that homosexuals were the embodiment of sin and an abomination. I’m bothered by the “standing up” defense generally but when you’re “standing up” for hate – and wrapping yourself in the cloak of Christianity – I’m not sure what to say. What would Blue-Eyed Jesus do?