You know that Duck Dynasty star Phil Robertson has been suspended by A&E from his reality show for saying that homosexuality leads to bestiality. In the same interview he also said black people were happier during segregation. (And what evidence do we have that they weren’t? Except the civil rights movement.)
Right wingers are ignoring the comments about Jim Crow and defending Robertson as a hero because he used the Bible to justify his condemnation of gay people, though there are maybe 8 verses that condemn homosexuality compared to over 100 that permit slavery.
Republican National Committeeman Dave Agema referenced the Bible, of course, in his Facebook post supporting the Duck family that he shared with his friends on Friday.
“Good for them,” he wrote. “The LGBT Gestapo speech police will not succeed when families like them are Biblically solid. You are in our prayers. May A&E fall into the pit they dug for you. STAND!”
The former member of Michigan’s House of Representatives also referenced the Bible earlier this month when asserting that the only reason gay people want health care is because they’re dying young.
A few days later, he received a partial standing ovation at a Republican Party meeting.
As Agema’s Facebook post was hitting his friends’ newsfeeds, the social media world was in an outrage over an offensive tweet from a British public relations representative that no one had heard of “joking” that white people don’t get AIDS.
If you go to Dave Agema’s website, in the section where he invites you to “research” same-sex marriage, he offers several links about HIV/AIDS, as if he’s arguing that only gay people get AIDS.
A Republican Party official is continually saying the kind of offensive things that cost others their jobs. The only consequences of his actions? Equally hateful Republicans call him a “prophet.”
As someone who says things that offend people, I know that others have the right to be offended or even fire me if they disagree with my words or my intentions. No one has a right to a platform they don’t own.
We have a free market that punishes or rewards free speech. Being anti-gay just isn’t good for business anymore — unless your business is conservative politics.
If PR folks and reality stars want to get away with saying awful things, they should do the prudent thing and become prominent members of the Republican Party.
Meme courtesy of Progress Michigan, used with permission
