A newly surfaced video of “Duck Dynasty” star Phil Robertson preaching against homosexuality arrives at a very inconvenient time for A&E.
Video of a 2010 sermon in which he grouped gays with people full of “murder, envy, strife, hatred” circulated online Friday. A&E suspended Robertson Wednesday from cable’s top-rated reality show after he made anti-gay comments in an interview with GQ. On Thursday, his family said they “cannot imagine” continuing the show without their patriarch.
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The 2010 video emerges just as A&E is trying to find a middle ground that will allow the show to go on. On one side are Christian conservatives outraged at Robertson’s suspension for expressing his belief that homosexuality is a sin. On the other are people who say religion is no excuse for bigotry.
“First they say, ‘There is no God. Get him out of your mind,’” Robertson says in the speech. “Then they bow down to birds, animals and reptiles, and each other. And the first thing you see coming out of them is gross sexual immorality. They will dishonor their bodies with one another, degrade each other. Uh, is that going on in the United States of America? Look around. God’s not there… And boy is there some immorality going on around here. Does it get worse?”
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Robertson never explains who exactly “they” are. In his GQ interview, he similarly grouped gays with “terrorists” and “drunks,” saying they were all sinners. This time, he seems to be adding animal lovers to the group.
“Women with women, men with men, they committed indecent acts with one another, and they received in themselves the due penalty for their perversions,” he continued. “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 gonna do Pennsylvania? Just run with them? You’re going to die. Don’t forget that.”
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Making the video even more problematic for A&E is the fact that it is, well, a video. Previously, news shows fixated on the story could only run quotes from the print interview. Now they can run Robertson’s videotaped remarks, making his statements all the more vivid.
The sermon in the video drew attention in August for Robertson’s condemnation of abortion. But the gay remarks were largely overlooked. The video was scrutinized anew after Robertson’s remarks to GQ.
Watch the video: