Previous Post
Next Post

Duck Dynasty's Phil Robertson (courtesy bentcorner.com)

The recent flap about Duck Dynasty star Phil Robertson’s comments on homosexuality got me thinking. While I don’t share Robertson’s belief that being gay is a sin – at all – I support his right to be wrong, in public. That said, the remarks themselves were inexcusably crass. Vagina vs. anus? Really? Robertson must have known that this comment would inflame both homosexuals and heterosexuals. To what end (so to speak)? It’s certainly not the kind of language I’d expect from a “true Christian”; someone who loves the sinner but hates the sin. Nope. The comment was needlessly, heedlessly insensitive. And it reminds me of nothing so much as the comments I’ve heard as a gun guy. Or should I say “gun nut” . . .

Fag. Gun nut. Critics use these terms to the signal the “fact” that the recipient’s behavior is unacceptable. Beyond the pale. That they’re genetically, morally and spiritually abhorrent. Both words are designed to marginalize otherwise acceptable members of society. To ostracize them. More than that, people use the terms fag and gun nut to condemn the person themselves. To make the recipient wish they’d never been born. The terms are, in short, hate speech.

I’ve been called both. The first because that’s what boys called each other at Moses Brown, the all-boys school I attended for ten years. If I did anything that didn’t fit the macho ideal I was a fag. Soccer instead of football? Fag. Cool shoes? Fag. Close friendship with someone artistic? Fag. The term didn’t bother me per se. In almost all cases, it was just a word used by bullies to put someone down, regardless of their sexual orientation. Truth be told, I used it myself more than once.

But I knew that calling someone a fag was wrong. My parents’ gay friends were funny, intellectual and creative people (just like their heterosexual friends). I never once thought of calling them—or anyone else outside of school—a fag. That would be like calling a black man a nigger or a Jew a kike. A decent person didn’t go there; using the term for real would have revealed me as intolerant, uneducated and classless. As the child of the late 60’s, I embraced society’s movement towards what’s now called diversity, what was once called tolerance and brotherhood. A trend that, eventually, included gays.

Personally, I didn’t experience much prejudice. Sure, there was some anti-Semitism. But like the fag thing, it was mostly background noise. The only time I got a real taste of what it was like to be “different” was when I hitched a ride home from Mount Hermon summer school with an all-black basketball team. It sounds silly but that was a genuinely eye-opening, sensitivity-enhancing experience. As was the February, 2013 Washington Post front page profile ‘This gun rights backer, armed with his Glock and his blog, is always on alert.’

Back home, Farago greets his daughter, Lola. His nanny calls a cab. Lola is in third grade and attends a Quaker school. That’s a bit awkward for the gun blogger, and he tries to keep his interests “on the down-low.”

Closeted? Moi? Be that as it was (before I moved to Texas), the WaPo article is fair enough; writer Joel Achenbach accurately represented my views on guns and gun control. The comments are . . . startling. At a rough guess, I’d say 80 percent of the 4108 comments are unapologetically, viciously antagonistic. Here’s beefchop423’s response, currently sitting at the top of the pile:

“Once you put a gun on, you gain situational awareness,” he says.

What a load of hooey (I wish I could use the word I want to). Once you put a gun on, you have the proverbial hammer and every problem you come across will look like a nail.

Paranoid, frightened little man. And millions like him. 10-15,000 accidental deaths and murders are on your shoulders.

That’s a relatively light-hearted example. Here’s another one from ronsattler:

It is far more likely that the house will blow up from the incorrectly installed water heater in the basement than anyone invading his house. Poster children for delusional dummies. No wonder he’s divorced twice, clearly he has mental issues that need professional help and care. Maybe his tin foil hats will protect him?

The term “gun nut” is the anti-gun equivalent of “fag.” In short-hand and in no uncertain terms it says that anyone who exercises their natural, civil and Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms is mentally defective.

American gun owners must not allow themselves to be mischaracterized as mentally ill. Just as African-Americans had to fight for their civil rights, gun owners must stand up for theirs against the antis’ ignorance, prejudice and hatred. We must counter these character attacks and embrace any and all opportunities to openly and loudly defend and extend our Second Amendment protections, and declare our determination to protect our life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.

More than that, gun owners cannot afford to be anything other than completely inclusive. We don’t have to agree with or even like our fellow gun owners…or non-gun owners for that matter. But our rights depend on taking the moral high ground and leaving our divisive beliefs below. Or at least voicing them with respect. As Benjamin Franklin put it, “We must, indeed, all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.” Literally.

Previous Post
Next Post

539 COMMENTS

  1. I see your thought process and agree with it, but not on this issue…..it lends itself to Political Correctness too much. The man was asked a question…and he answered it. And he did so by quoting the bible. Nothing wrong with that. If PC get itself rooted, just about any conversation, no matter how opinionated, can be deemed to be offensive. The man has his beliefs, and it doesn’t matter if you or I agree with them…those beliefs that he spoke of are held by the majority of peoples i this country. This pisses PC fans off something terrible.

    A fine example is to take a look at the marriage issue, every time it goes on the ballot in our states, its gets voted out by the populace…lol..even in the people republic of California (what was it two separate times it got voted out,,hahaha). But, if someone puts a microphone in front of them..they say they support gay rights to marriage. …mind boggling honestly. Everyone wants to present themselves as a “better person”….but in order to do so, you must first cast away your core values and beliefs. Phil has cast away nothing. and that is why I respect him.

      • I challenge all people who support gay marriage and believe that there is no rational argument against it to listen to this video.

        There were ONLY TWO outside persons invited to congress to speak for the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and this person was one of them. See if if you still think the same way after listening.

        • The content in that Youtube link is nonsense. This really isn’t that difficult of an issue. Mind your own damn business. That’s it. I don’t care if someone wants to get married to two or three people, an animal, their cousin or a damn refrigerator.

          I believe in the consent clause. If two or more adult people clearly show consent, and their actions cause no harm to anyone outside their situation then it’s not my business, it’s not your business and it’s certainly not the government’s business.

          It’s disappointing to see all these conservatives who are so concerned with the liberals who want to establish a nanny state getting so riled up about what adults do in their bedroom. How about you live your life and stop worrying so much about what other people are doing? Sound good?

          This is why I can’t take conservatives seriously. They get so riled up about the government enforcing laws they don’t agree with but the very second they have an agenda they want to push, using the government to see it through is A-OK. Just mind your own damn business folks. There’s WAY more important issues out there than gay marriage. If this is your primary concern you have too much free time on your hands.

        • @Ace

          Is your comment an example of that progressive “nuanced” thinking that I keep hearing about?

          Interesting that in that exact video Prager comments on how the left never has an answer for his objections.

        • @BradN

          Strange, conservatives and most of the world were “minding their own business” and then the Gay Lobby decided that they wanted to redefine the institution of marriage that was a happily minding its own business for the past 3,000 years or so.

          I’m sure you feel that you are finer, kinder, smarter, and better human beings for supporting gay marriage…but you know what….your not.

          Then you go to the old leftist well and say how the opposition gets “so riled up about what adults do in their bedroom” when in fact it’s impossible for society not to get inundated with stories, films, movies, newspapers yapping about the glory of homosexuals and gay marriage. Seems like YOU FOLKS are the ones so insecure with our bedroom practices that you have to announce to world about how simply fabulous your lifestyle. Hey guess what, I don’t give a flying F what hole you fill up.

        • @doesky2

          I’m not understanding this perception of something being pure and good just because it’s old. If something doesn’t cause harm then it is inconsequential if it is old or new. It’s old and tradition for many thousands of years to stone disobedient children, should we bring this practice back? Should we reject new developments in technology simply because that’s not how they did things in the old days?

          I’m not a “gay marriage supporter”, I’m a “do whatever the hell you want as long as it doesn’t infringe on the rights of others” supporter.

          What’s so hard to understand about that? Gay people or polygamists getting married do absolutely diddly squat to influence anything in your life in any negative way. Therefore it’s not your business.

          YOU think marriage is between a man and a woman? Fine, then YOU don’t get married to your same sex.

          It’s the same as firearms to me. These gun-grabbers don’t like guns? That’s perfectly fine, they don’t have to own one, just don’t stop me from owning one.

          As far as what this Duck Dynasty dude said, I really don’t care. Even though his comments about Black people (which I am Black) were ignorant, I really don’t care what comes out of his mouth and people should leave him be to believe whatever he wants and say whatever he wants. It is his right.

          PS, I hate Liberals and Conservatives equally. They are both full of BS and are holding this country back with their views. This is America, we are supposed to be free to do whatever we wish. Limiting what free adults can do and treating them like children is UNAMERICAN. PERIOD.

        • doesky2, please cite to this “(definition) of the institute of marriage” that you refer to. We’ll wait.

        • @ El Mac

          No. Remember, consent clause. Not infringing on others rights yadda yadda yadda, you know everything I just stated in that huge wall of text I submitted.

        • @BradN

          Thomas Sowell described most leftist thinking as “Stage 1 thinking”. He details how most leftist policy is based on making people feel good about themselves and that is typically the extent of their thought process of social policy changes. Very rarely (if ever) do leftists ever consider the consequences of their actions. The results of Stage 1 thinking brought us the destruction of the black family (Stage 1 thinking about welfare), the destruction of the manufacturing capability (Stage 1 about unions), and the death of millions of Africans (Stage 1 thinking about eliminating DDT).

          So now the left wants to discard the concept of male/female social standard that was the underpinning of society for the past thousands of years.

          The left and YOU keep saying things like “Gay people or polygamists getting married do absolutely diddly squat to influence anything in your life in any negative way”

          Well lets list just a sampling of things that already have occurred since the advent of gay marriage.

          1) Businesses have been FORCED to cater gay marriage ceremonies even if it violates their religious beliefs. Do you believe a baker should be forced to violate his religious beliefs so that a gay couple can make a political statement rather then to just walk down the street to another baker?

          2) The largest child adoption agency in America (Catholic charities) has stopped activities in two states because they were FORCED to place gay couples at the same level of equivalence as a male/female couple? Do you believe your father and mother both gave unique value to your upbringing? Well tough luck for adoptive kids in those 2 states. Adoptive kids in those states may very well get cheated out having a mother or father because YOU want to feel good about yourself concerning gay marriage.

          I could go on for pages. This is just a small SAMPLE of unforeseen issues of gay marriage that Stage 1 thinking enables. These issues may not impact me TODAY but it impacts SOCIETY in the long run.

          I’m not understanding this perception of something being pure and good just because it’s old.

          Spoken like a true narcissist who thinks they are smarter then everyone born before them. The hubris is typical of the left.

          The left just thinks “civil society” is just a given natural state of things. In reality it took centuries to achieve and the left has done a spectacular job of dismantling it over a few short decades.

          .

        • @BradN

          I don’t care if someone wants to get married to two or three people, an animal, their cousin or a damn refrigerator.

          Well there you go. Glad we got that settled that allowing gay marriage for the justification that “It’s about love” starts society down the path to polygamy, brother/brother, brother/sister, parent/child marriages because they would have the same “right” to a marriage as gays since it is based on “love”.

          Or we can NOT go down that colossal and dangerous societal experiment by saying that marriage should remain defined as the traditional male/female bonding.

          But hey, what the F, lets just roll the dice and see what happens because right it makes me feel so darn enlightened, smart, and special.

        • Mr. Prager is in the class of “Oppression is coming for us, so oppress back” class of individuals.

        • @Gray Peterson

          Mr. Prager is in the class of “Oppression is coming for us, so oppress back” class of individuals.

          Does that make you feel all warm and superior when you wrote that?

          What you call oppression has been called “societal standards” for centuries. The left is great at lowering standards and then not accepting the blame for the chaos that ensues. I presented just a sampling of major negative repercussions to allowing gay marriage and you completely ignore them because you don’t have a valid response. You want to allow gay marriage because you feel good about it and society be damned.

        • I once read a series of articles in which Dennis Prager argued for religion/Christianity over atheism in a back-and-forth against noted published atheists. Those articles are what turned me atheist.

        • @doesky2

          The problems you list so far are not issues with gay marriage per se, but rather with the state forcing ideology down the throats of private citizens. As private entities, the Portland and CO bakers and Catholic Church should NEVER be forced to participate in and support practices that are against their core values. Tyranny, pure and simple.

          But it doesn’t have to be this way. In theory, the law could provide gay couples important legal protections without forcing non-consenting others to participate.

          And this is something the other side of the issue may wish to consider: Many, perhaps most, people are willing to tolerate you. To live and let live. I personally don’t care what one or more consenting adults do in the privacy of their own home, and this essentially libertarian stance is becoming more common (particularly among young people).

          But if you won’t accept tolerance as an end goal, if you must go a step further and shove your morality down other peoples’ throats by force of law, you might find that people will not put up with it forever.

        • Herein lies the problem. For too many, tolerance is not nearly enough. What they are really seeking, perhaps unconsciously, is love and acceptance. They can have one, but to seek them both is asking too much. Some folks can’t learn where “enough” is.

        • @Cdotsen

          Those articles are what turned me atheist.

          Well we now established that you are not able to comprehend basic arguments.

          Atheism is the the most nonsensical of all belief systems. Yep atheism is a belief.

          So which of the flavors of atheism do you agree with?
          1) Something spontaneously formed from nothing
          …or…
          2) Something has been around forever

          See when you put atheism in those easy to comprehend terms it’s very easy to see how stupid atheism is.

        • @Old Ben

          But it doesn’t have to be this way. In theory, the law could provide gay couples important legal protections without forcing non-consenting others to participate.

          Well there’s your 1st stage thinking optimism. However we live in the real world where the Gay Lobby is assisting in these lawsuits against the general public and winning results from judges.

          I personally don’t care what one or more consenting adults do in the privacy of their own home

          Neither do I. That has nothing to do with favoring gay marriage.

          … if you must go a step further and shove your morality down other peoples’ throats by force of law, you might find that people will not put up with it forever.

          Sure seems like the Gay Lobby is shoving THEIR morality down the throat of society. You just refuse to accept the valid arguments against gay marriage because you want to feel superior.

          Hey I realize Prager and I are on a losing track. The general public is too stupid and lazy to have a real national conversation about it (and the media wouldn’t permit it either). However, even if it’s a losing battle, at least as time goes by and people wonder how our society got F’d up a bunch more due to gay marriage, at least I will have a clean conscience and say I did my best to prevent it.

        • Ho, hum. Here we go again on the Gay Marriage bandwagon.

          As far as I’m concerned, gay marriage ought to be a straightforward matter of Freedom of Religion if you simply consider marriage as both a religious institution and a civil / legal status.

          As a matter of personal religious belief, feel free to apply your own standards to any union and consider it valid or invalid before God.

          As a matter of religious freedom, a religiously-neutral government should apply a different set of standards that reflect the wider opinions of our country on what ought to constitute a legally-protected union.

          If the government model for a legal union doesn’t meet your personal standards for a “marriage” then feel free to consider the use of the term “marriage” to describe such a union as incorrect (or incomplete). But, as an American, please consider that honoring a right to religious freedom means that gaps may exist between your personal beliefs and the laws of this country.

    • Having a “core value” that a segment of the population is second class is just as bad as waiting firearms banned.

      If you support the right to own a gun, you sure as hell better support the right of gays to marry, and buy guns as well. It’s the only way to win the second amendment fight in this country, by supporting liberalization of ALL personal rights, not just gun rights.

        • Anyone can “marry” anyone else they want. No one has kept anyone from that. There is no requirement that others have to recognize it.

        • Really? Because I’m 100% sure that if you are gay and want to get married, there are still a lot of states where you can’t do that.

        • You can indeed call yourself married in any of the 50 states. That doesn’t mean it has to be recognized by anyone, including the government.

        • Nick, homosexuals can marry or otherwise cohabitate in all 50 states. Period. What you are talking about is forcing the State to endorse gay marriage through the issuance of marriage licenses and forcing other citizens, at gunpoint, to accept homosexuality as normal despite their religious, moral, and medical objections to it. Homosexuals desire this governmental endorsement for 2 primary reasons: 1) their belief that this will help normalize their sexual preferences in the eyes of most people; and 2) financial benefits accorded to spouses of employees, etc.

          It is rather amusing that this vocal subset of citizens screamed bloody murder for decades about getting the government out of their bedrooms, yet the moment they accomplish this, they turn around and DEMAND that the government get back into their bedrooms pronto.

        • @Nick

          So Nick the “gay marriage lobby” says that if two people love each other they should be allowed to marry. If three people love each then they should be allowed to marry right? If two brothers loved each other should they be allowed to marry? If a brother/sister loved each other they should be allowed to marry too right? (Don’t bother mentioned incest, that can be prevented) Where exactly are you going to draw the line?

          A man/woman marriage has been the standard for thousands of years. You and your ilk believe you are smarter, kinder, and wiser then everyone that has come before…and I’m sick of it.

        • If the government is going to be in your bedroom (by issuing a marriage license), then it needs to be in everyone’s bedroom equally.

          Really, gay marriage is a non-issue. A percentage of the homosexuals (already a minority) in this country will get married (or civil-unioned, or whatever they end up calling it), have the same legal rights and benefits as everyone else, be treated equally under the law, and life will go on. Straight people will keep right on getting married and crankin’ out screwed-up straight kids, who will grow up and get married and create more dysfunctional straight people (and some dysfunctional homosexual people too).

          Let’s just get over it and get past it already. It’s not like they’re demanding anything the rest of us (straight people) don’t already have. So what if it becomes “normal” for two homosexuals to get married and walk down the street holding hands or whatever? So what?
          If the thought of that makes you uncomfortable, then maybe that’s YOUR problem.

        • H.R., sorry, but you cannot make it normal. I truly do not care what homosexuals call their relationships whether they call them “marriages” or “purple cows”. I have a problem with the State trying to force me to support them. Now, I would agree that government has no business being involved in marriage in the first place, but suggesting that inappropriately intervening in all relationships makes it better is simply foolish.

        • Peter, so you admit that homo- and hetero-sexual people don’t have the same rights in many states. Thank you for that.

        • Stilicho, in the past, inter-racial marriage wasn’t “normal”. What is your point? 1. Define “normal”, 2. Explain how “normal” is a legal limitation on Constitutional and Civil Rights.

          I don’t see anything in the Constitution that allows the government to define marriage. Technically, it would be prohibited from doing so under the First, Ninth and Tenth Amendments. And I take “reserved… to the people” damn seriously.

        • “Stilicho, in the past, inter-racial marriage wasn’t “normal”. What is your point? 1. Define “normal”, 2. Explain how “normal” is a legal limitation on Constitutional and Civil Rights.

          I don’t see anything in the Constitution that allows the government to define marriage. Technically, it would be prohibited from doing so under the First, Ninth and Tenth Amendments. And I take “reserved… to the people” damn seriously.”

          1) “normal” was used in the sense of the natural order of sexual congress between man and woman. 2) It imposes no such limits.
          3) Not only does the Constitution grant no authority to the government to define marriage, it grants no authority to regulate it period.
          4) My turn: 1) where do you think this alleged “right” to gay marriage comes from? 2) By what right do you expect to compel me to recognize and accept gay marriages?

      • “If you support the right to own a gun, you sure as hell better support the right of gays to marry, and buy guns as well.”

        PC has consumed you. ….sadly

        • PC hasn’t consumed me to any degree. I just realize that gays should be able to marry, it doesn’t matter! It’s just like how assault weapons shouldn’t be banned because they’re scary looking; gay people shouldn’t not be able to marry just because it hurts your feelings. Get over it.

        • -201. If that’s “PC” then anything and everything is PC. What Nick said is correct, it’s the height of irony to want your own personal freedoms protected while at the same time pushing for the freedoms of others (ones that have no real negative effect on you at least) to be restricted.

        • “It’s just like how assault weapons shouldn’t be banned because they’re scary looking; gay people shouldn’t not be able to marry just because it hurts your feelings. Get over it.”

          Exactly.
          Lots of people do lots of things that I may not be 100% comfortable with.
          But that doesn’t matter. As long as they don’t harm me or threaten my liberty, I just need to deal with it. Liberty isn’t always a tidy thing, and if I want mine respected, then I’d better do my best to respect the liberty of others.

        • I respect their liberty. I don’t respect them and their militancy. Why do they want to “get married” in a church? Simple: they want to break it off in Christian’s asses because Christians don’t support that lifestyle. They want to rub Christian’s noses in their filth.

          But Christians are supposed to smile and bend over and spread their cheeks with glee?

          Riiiight……. not in my lifetime.

        • “Why do they want to “get married” in a church?”

          What does or doesn’t happen in a church should be up to the congregation.
          My parents were married by a Justice of the Peace and kept it together for over 30 years. You don’t need a church to be married.

          But do you need a law that allows you to be treated equally.

        • Sure, they can find a congregation to marry them. Plenty of Satanic churches out there would be happy to accommodate them.

          I guess it all boils down to whether or not one has any morals or not. Whether one believes in right or wrong. Or whether one just wants to live in a grey zone all their lives…moral soup…otherwise known as a toilet bowl.

        • I am eternally perplexed by gay marriage; the same people who touted gayness as an “alternative lifestyle” for decades – and I DO mean “touted” – now want, simultaneously, to be recognized as part of an “alternative lifestyle”, and to be able to marry, IN A TRADITIONAL SETTING.

          The lifestyle CANNOT simultaneously be “alternative” and “traditional”; that’s the height of absurdity, as well as cognitive dissonance.

          My second point is in the form of a question. These people who are attacking Phil Robertson – I’ve tried, in vain, to find ONE instance where they have mounted an attack against one single Muslim who expressed the identical opinion.

          We should not allow them to repeatedly get away with such a ridiculous double standard.

        • “Sure, they can find a congregation to marry them. Plenty of Satanic churches out there would be happy to accommodate them.

          I guess it all boils down to whether or not one has any morals or not. Whether one believes in right or wrong. Or whether one just wants to live in a grey zone all their lives…moral soup…otherwise known as a toilet bowl.”

          I know a few homosexual people, one of them pretty well.
          Just being homosexual doesn’t make you evil. A great many gay people live productive lives, go to work, pay taxes, don’t rob or beat old ladies, and are pretty much unremarkable except for the fact that they’re homosexual. And that’s only remarkable because everyone spends so much time arguing about it.
          Well, I’ll take that back – one of them is kind of unusual because he’s a Republican. He also goes to church and visits his aging mother twice a month. I can’t imagine him being a threat to anyone.

          As for morality, that’s a personal choice that we each make every day. No act of government can legislate away “immoral” behavior and I’d argue that the government doesn’t have any business defining what is moral and what isn’t anyhow. Remember, the Bible existed for centuries before our nation was created. The Founders could have based our government on it, but they wrote the Constitution instead.

        • 1) I didn’t call anyone evil. I said they would be welcome in a Satanic Church.
          2) I personally don’t care whether they do or don’t break laws, pay taxes, work, etc. That’s not what this argument is about.
          3) I’m not advocating morality enforcement by our Leftist Godvernment. In fact, just the opposite. I want the Leftist Godvernment out of my life. I don’t want them forcing there sinful, hateful, rotten beliefs on me or mine. What they do in their bedrooms is up to them. What I don’t tolerate is their “in your face or we’ll break it off in your ass” mentality. I do not accept that. I will not accept that. Ever.
          4) As for the Founders comment….you might want to go back and read a history book or two. Or read the Federalist Papers rather than spew that common pablum from the Leftist talking points.

        • Oh, you could say I’ve studied a little history in my time. I’ve studied it enough to know that Washington took his oath of office on a borrowed Bible and that Jefferson edited a Bible to his own liking. Every one of the Founders likely had one in easy reach… and they still wrote the Constitution. Though I’ve read countless books on various aspects of history from cover to cover, I don’t need one to explain the implications of that to me.

          Quite frankly, both parties seek to control people and I’m sick of all of it. I used to vote primarily Republican but they lost me, largely due to issues like this. Both sides need to get off everyone’s back and let us all be, let us all live our lives and pursue our own happiness in peace.

          As you said though, we’re getting off track.

          The issue at hand here is one of equality. The law is not treating a segment of our population equally. It wouldn’t be OK if it were discriminating against straight people or women or old white guys, so it’s not OK that the law discriminates against homosexuals. And though I suspect that I’ll never get any support from the very people I’m willing to stand up for when my own rights are threatened, my principles dictate that I still have to do it.

          I’m not any more ignorant than anyone else and I’m not a leftist. I just remember a pledge I used to say in school that ended “with liberty and justice for all.” And at least until I become too cynical, that’s what I’m going to push for. You can hate it all you want, but that’s how it is.

        • How about we just do away with the “institution” of marriage altogether? It’s demonstrably a failed one. We could substitute “civil unions”; they’re just as failure-prone, but a lot less messy to untangle.

          I believe one may find some “reverends” who actually perform “short-term marriages”. That’s just recognizing the current state of marriage, and improving upon it. The union can be dissolved simply by one party requesting it. And those drunken flings that end in a hangover and what-the-hell-is-THIS-on-my-finger moments would be a thing of the past!

        • Lots of verbage. Verbosity. Cool.

          BLUF: The sodomites don’t want equality, the want superiority. They want sanctification for their perversion. They want submission from the non-sodomites.

      • Gays have never been denied the right to marry. But as marriage is defined as a man and a woman, they choose not to marry. Same as saying that the handgun you’re carrying is really a shotgun. The two are defined differently.

        • I agree from a Christian standpoint. HOWEVER, what about non Christian gays? Then why can’t they be legally married?

          I’m atheist, should I not be able to get married either because it’s a Christian tradition?

        • I support gay marriage why shouldn’t the have the right to be just as unhappy as the rest of us?

        • “I’m atheist, should I not be able to get married either because it’s a Christian tradition?”

          Not in a Christian church, hoss. If you want to go get a woman, get the State to sanction your cohabitation, etc. you can certainly do so, but why do you think the legitimacy of your relationship depends upon State sanction? Do you think the legitimacy of your right to own firearms or your right to defend yourself depends upon State approval?

        • What about when individuals that are part of a gay couple are unable to do things that hetero married folks can do? Like file and reap the benefits of a joint tax return? Being prevented from visiting their significant other in the hospital because it’s “family only?” (I think that happens less these days.) Being able to make “end of life” choices for their SO? (I know that one still happens.) Rules having to do with inheritances and probate? All of those things require some degree of “state sanction of the legitimacy of the relationship.”

          I have a curious three-legged feeling about homosexuality. First, I personally think it’s somewhat odd and unnatural, but since it clearly occurs organically (someone’s not making it happen) I’m clearly wrong about the “unnatural” part. Second, I don’t care what other people do in the privacy of their own homes. And third, I recognize that any system that doesn’t treat everyone equally (like giving more rights and credence to Kim Kardashian’s latest marriage than to a three-decade monogamous relationship between two women or two men) is inherently unfair. When you come right down to it, that third leg of my platform is nothing more than contract law. Why are some contracts valued as being somehow less valid than others?

        • “Not in a Christian church, hoss. If you want to go get a woman, get the State to sanction your cohabitation, etc. you can certainly do so, but why do you think the legitimacy of your relationship depends upon State sanction? ”

          When a minister or pastor marries you in a church, he does the ceremony in a church, but the legitimacy for the marriage comes from the power vested in him (or her) by the state.

          Maybe we should take government entirely out of the marriage business. But if we’re not willing to do that, then everyone is going to have to be treated equally under the law.

        • “Maybe we should take government entirely out of the marriage business. But if we’re not willing to do that, then everyone is going to have to be treated equally under the law.”

          Bingo. The government should not be in the business of dictating the terms of social contracts between consenting adults. It should be up to the adults themselves to set the terms of their relationship.

          As long as the government is in the business of regulating marriage, it should not be enforcing gender discrimination while doing so. Saying that two opposite-sex persons may be married and two same-sex persons may not is explicit government discrimination based solely on the gender of the participants.

        • “Like file and reap the benefits of a joint tax return? Being prevented from visiting their significant other in the hospital because it’s “family only?” (I think that happens less these days.) Being able to make “end of life” choices for their SO? (I know that one still happens.) Rules having to do with inheritances and probate? All of those things require some degree of “state sanction of the legitimacy of the relationship.”

          Matt, 1) if gays want to pay the marriage penalty, let ’em. Any benefits that might accrue to a joint return are a problem with the tax code not marriage. If anyone wants to take on and support a dependent in order to file a joint tax return, let ’em. That’s a tax code issue. 2) End of life choices, medical decisions, etc. are already properly handled my powers of attorney, living wills, etc. If a hospital refuses to honor such legal documents, that isn’t a problem with marriage, it is a problem with the hospital refusing to follow the law. 3) As for inheritances, wills and trusts solve the issues (just like they do for everyone else). Any differences with tax treatment (i.e. spousal exemption) is a tax issue.

      • I could care less about gay people getting married, my only problem is if the government tries to force churches to marry people against their beliefs. Other than that, 2 consenting adults, go nuts.

        • That’s not what is on the table. It is the exact opposite in fact. Many churches marry gay people, that still dose not grant them the full rights afforded married straight couples.

      • Total BS brainwashing propoganda from the progressives and their sodomy lobby.

        In the US man can marry any woman that will have him. A queer has exactly the same “right” to the benefit of marriage as anyone else. BUT they don’t get a special “right” to marry their butt buddy, the german shepard, or the farmer next door’s prize Suffock (or donkey) just because “in love”.

        Phil added a religious observation or justification to his logical (and correct) observations. However no religious background is needed to recognize degenerate antisocial behavior. It is amazing how a logical incredulous observation might be “offensive” but the act/practice/lifestyle being discussed is somehow to be looked on as “normal” or something to be acceptable. Just amazing how quickly the chattering media/educrate class has been worked over by this europrogressive anything goes nonsense.

        Lecture that if support 2nd amendment must support sodomy? How this lecture – “you have no personal standards of behavior or values then you are the enemy of civilization or at least American Exceptionalism”.

        • Here’s my question, why are you so afraid of “sodomy”? Why are you so afraid of gay couples being able to enjoy the same legal/governmental/tax benefits that married couples are? How exactly does that hurt you? I find homosexuality weird myself, but I’m confident in my own sexuality, so I don’t harbor any ill-will towards gays. I actually find them to be nicer in general than the average straight person. To call their behavior antisocial is ironic because in fact consenual sodomy is the very opposite of antisocial behavior.

          I can understand Christians objecting to it on religious grounds, and being against the idea of churches performing the marriages, but then why don’t they make a fuss about all of the non-Christians who are allowed to get married? And if God is the final judge of all, why not let him deal with them once they die instead of playing God yourself? Didn’t Jesus teach us to love and not hate? Oh and John 8:7, let him without sin cast the first stone, and all that.

          It just amazes me how there are so many real issues in this world, people dying, government tyranny, personal freedoms being infringed upon, people losing their jobs, inflation, crime, etc., yet few things get a certain segment of the population’s panties in a bunch more than two people of the same sex being happy together (the horror) and being able to enjoy the same legal benefits as everyone else. Especially when FIFTY PERCENT of straight married couples get divorced and a significant portion of the 50% that don’t are probably unhappy.

          This country would be so much better off if everyone just minded their own damn business instead of judging others or trying to restrict their personal freedom.

        • Because in the minds of many of those who object to gay marriage on Biblical grounds, there is no difference between a man marrying another man or a man marrying a fish.

          I don’t pretend to understand that mindset, mind you.

        • This country would be so much better off if everyone just minded their own damn business instead of judging others or trying to restrict their personal freedom.

          Whether on the left or the right, it’s all about control of others, isn’t it?

        • ” This country would be so much better off if everyone just minded their own damn business instead of judging others or trying to restrict their personal freedom.”

          That’s probably one of the most logical statements I’ve seen in this discussion.

      • Actually, he didn’t say they were second class. Just that he didn’t understand the appeal of homosexuality and followed it by saying that those who don’t follow Christ and willfully disobey God’s law aren’t going to make it to heaven. There was no “second class” implication. He didn’t advocate stoning the gays,(though Muslims still do that) restricting their rights or saying anything hateful. He just had the gall to say there is still right and wrong, and that the Bible is where you find God’s laws. How dare he actually believe what his religion says.

        Also? In no way does this have sweet FA to do with guns.

      • “If you support the right to own a gun, you sure as hell better support the right of gays to marry…”

        That’s just F’ing crazy talk. Did you happen to go to grad school?

      • No, I support the idea that my owning a gun is none of the governments business just like marriage of any kind should be none of the governments business.

      • I’m bemused by most pro- and anti-gay marriage posts. If the question is “should G or L people be allowed to do what they do”? Well, of course they should. But that isn’t what is behind the gay marriage push. The motive power is a wish to garner the subsidies we extend to those in a heterosexual marriage, specifically the Social Security step-up for marriage partners with much lower earnings history than their partners, and the federal tax code benefits of tax free gifts both in life and by bequest.

        I think extending those benefits, subsidizing them, is absurd in the case of childless gay marriages, and questionable when extended to those in heterosexual marriages who have not raised children together. The benefits were created intentionally to subsidize (“support and encourage”) the bearing and raising of children. They should not be extended simply to government-seal-of-approval love relationships. The tax and social-security subsidies were meant to support procreation and the education, raising, of children. Yet everyday, practically, I meet people calculating the benefits of a social security marriage (or military pension marriage) without any plan to raise a child.

        The entire subsidy concept should be rethought. Now.

    • You don’t have to think that Phil should be hounded off the air to believe that his opinions offered on homosexuality are asinine.

    • Phil didn’t use the term “fag” in the interview; you should make that clear Robert. If I missed him using that term, you should post the sentence where he did use it.

      As for the message from the bible that being gay is a sin; I hate to tell you all; there are a lot of behaviors that are not beneficial or supportive of a strong and vibrant culture; most of the behaviors supported by the liberal/progressive indoctrination are actively hostile to and in fact are completely destructive to a healthy culture.

      The bible is based on love, love of G-d, love of self, love of all human beings; but it is a manual based on tough love; it tells everyone what happens when we violate spiritual law, and it is not pretty.

      The liberal/progressive message is that any behavior, no matter how depraved, selfish, self destructive, or hostile towards the children- (the murder of unborn children anyone) is completely fine and anyone that says otherwise is just being hateful. WRONG!

      The bible is simply saying in a very loving but graphic way what happens when a people violate spiritual law. We are just another example among many in history where what was once considered perverse or as sinful is now considered acceptable, cool or even beneficial, Abortion, same sex relationships, sex outside of marriage, having a child outside of marriage, being a “gangster” ect, is now the norm and also from history and the bible; it is the sign of the end of that culture and it’s descent into anarchy, mass death leading ultimately to tyranny.

      Yep; one of the lessons from history is that people don’t learn from history; and we will all will pay a most fearsome price for once again; running headlong off the cliff.

        • Partly right. The founding fathers were mixed between Christian, Deists, and Theists, with a large number leaning toward various denominations within Christianity. Some of these denominations were persecuted among Christians as much as other beliefs. Our founding fathers didn’t want a state sanctioned religion, nor did they want any religions persecuted because they believed differently (just as they had been persecuted for their views in England). However, with their own beliefs, they had no problems with religion having input and influence in government, as so long as it didn’t exclude any other view (“religious” or “secular”). In their eyes, the separation was one-way: Gov’t was to be hands off religion, but religion could influence gov’t.

        • Well Nick, There are behaviors that when enough people hold them builds a strong culture; A belief in a higher power, personal responsibility where the individual was responsible for providing their own food, shelter, warmth and self-defense with the idea that they would provide for the general defense of the community as citizen soldiers with one over riding purpose, to get married with the purpose of providing a safe place to raise children.

          This is the idea that built our nation; when this vision falls out of favor, this is what destroys a republic and brings in the police state; look at the end of the Greek and Roman republics, many of the same behaviors can be seen today; much of what the liberal/progressive promotes is strong central government, lack of personal responsibility; especially as the first line of defense as a citizen soldier, and hating on the idea of marriage with the intent of having children.

          In my opinion, the Liberal/progressive and those that support a Nanny state and the disarmament of the people because the “government will protect us” are of the same ilk that destroyed the Greek and Roman republics and are currently threatening ours.

      • +1

        You know a fitting example would be Germany just as Hitler rose to power. The citizenry had rejected his elections and political party time and time again, he was pretty much a joke and the laughing stock of Europe. The Jews were a large and influential portion of German society for as long as anyone can remember. Hitler convince an entire populace to disregard its beliefs because it was politically correct to do so..thru propaganda motion pictures, posters, speeches and later thru scientists, telling how warped the Jews were. The age old question thru WWII history is “how could and entire nation do such evil things to other human beings?”

        Simple…they disregarded their core values and embraced pop culture…

      • How is the Bible based 100% on love when it advocates stoning and tells the story of how God got pissed that the tribes of Judah didn’t kill every man woman and child of opposing nations as He instructed them?

        You can’t just pick and choose what to believe from the Bible – it’s all or nothing. And if it’s all, telling a white lie is the same in the eyes of God as homosexual sex.

        In other words, to God, we are ALL THE SAME. Christians and other religions focus on the homosexual thing because A. They are ignorant of what they supposedly believe or B. Homosexuality makes them uncomfortable and they can try to hid behind religion while expressing this fact; nothing more.

        • Well TB, you’re obviously not familiar with the bible; and I’m not saying I’m an authority, but I understand that Christ came with a new covenant, one that allowed for forgiveness as when Christ said too those that wanted to stone the prostitute, ” that those without sin, to cast the first stone”; Just one example how the New Testament and our agreement with G-d is different from the agreement that is spoken of in the Old testament. But the New testament was also clear about the idea of sinful behavior and how we are not to engage in such. Romans first chapter is specific on this in Paul’s letter to the Romans.

        • Jesus never said he invalidated the Torah.

          In some ways, Jesus actually avoided the issue, in fact.

          As for not knowing the Bible, I took Bible class for 5 years, read the whole thing through several times, and have done individual research for 10 years.

          I also read the Book of Mormon as well as all the supporting texts such as the Pearl of Great Prices. I’ve read the Satanist Bible. I’ve tried to at least get a handle on every major religion/religious text in the world.

          In my experience, the vast majority of “Christians” parrot whatever their pastor/priest says who themselves parrot what their teachers taught them. Such is Dogma.

          While it’s true that Jesus was the flesh of the new covenant, my understanding is that his teachings were merely more important than the teachings of the old testament, hence the shift within Christianity to not stoning people.

          PLUS, Jesus is one part of a three part trinity. This means that God the Father, who is both part of Jesus yet separate (within Christianity), gave the words or inspiration of the Torah.

          Keep in mind, while the Israelites were being punished by God for sexual immorality, Phinehas killed an Israelite man who was having sex with a Midianite woman with a spear and God said:

          ““Phinehas son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, the priest, has turned my anger away from the Israelites. Since he was as zealous for my honor among them as I am, I did not put an end to them in my zeal.”

          Please explain to me how this was not human sacrifice considering many of the Israelite men were having relations with Moabite women.

          …So the Bible and Christianity being all about love is a bold faced lie.

        • “Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill.” Matthew 5:17

        • Well TB, Christ said he came to fulfill the Prophets, not to deny them; But the biggest thing to look at TB is Christ’s actions; he didn’t stone anyone, he fed the poor, helped the blind to see, taught that even lepers should be treated with kindness, his whole ministry and his action was based on love; and he also said to follow G-d’s laws and sin no more and then he allowed himself to be torn to pieces and nailed to the cross for us and our sins, that is love.

          But if all you want to see is hate, fear and vengeance, then there is nothing I can say that will change that, but I would suggest reading the new testament again and ask for Christ’s and G-d’s love to understand His message.

        • 1. Judging ancient Israelites (or any ancient culture, for that matter) by modern standards is foolish.

          2. You say that, “Christianity being all about love is a bold faced lie.” To support this statement, you use an example from the Old Testament, which occurred centuries before Christ was born and Christianity became a religion, invalidating your argument. Christianity is NOT the same thing as ancient (or modern) Judaism.

          3. Try reading/studying the New Testament, TheBear. Jesus was humble, loving, accepting, wise, and self-sacrificing, and Christians are supposed to follow his example. Granted, many of us (myself included) do a pretty sh*tty job of this, but our own shortcomings don’t negate on invalidate Christ’s message.

        • Guys.. you are both missing my point and proving it at the same time.

          Do you believe part or none of the Bible. ‘Cause guess what? You can’t believe /only/ the new testament. It doesn’t work that way. Jesus’ claim to fame was that he fulfilled the prophesies of the Messiah, but did so in a way the ancient Jews were not expecting, hence the resistance.

          See, here’s the rub – Jesus IS God. That means he is part of the same entity that ordered the death of every first born in Egypt who was not in a protected household.

          Which is what I say when I hear, “How could God have let my baby die!?!?” Well, uh… he kinda sent the Angel of Death (who many biblical scholars believe to have been Jesus himself) to kill babies and children.

          Also, I laughed a bit at the “reread the Bible and find love” thing. Guys, I consider myself at least mostly Christian, but I operate from a standpoint of reason and honesty.

          Believing Christianity is 100% love and compassion is bullshit. Actually read the Bible with a critical thinking cap on. I mean, Paul was afflicted with something terrible (thorn of the flesh) after telling of his Revelation.

          Sure, Jesus was a swell guy – and in my experiences with most mainstream Christians, Buddy Christ is the breadth of their knowledge and the point they have no desire to move away from in exploring their own religion; hence my disdain.

        • TB, how is it that you claim to have studied the Bible and religion for so long and yet you do not understand the ancient and universal concept of blood-guilt and redemption? If you truly do not understand that the old testament and it’s laws concerned a specific group of people at a specific time under specific circumstances, I suggest you revisit your studies. Was the old testament law harsh? Yes, yes it was. I could go into a long diatribe about how the religion of Yahweh and the people who followed it needed to be kept pure, and thus the reasoning behind stonings, etc, but this would require many long discussions of many side issues which are contentious and this forum isn’t the place for that. However, the entire reason for Christ’s appearance on the Earth was to free people from this bondage to the Mosaic law, through which they were justified before God. This is the essence of the gospel, and you don’t understand this? To be clear, when Jesus spoke of fulfilling the law, he was speaking of the Mosaic system of law, which symbolized his sacrifice; this is why the Mosaic law (and NOT the Ten Commandments) was nailed to the cross……and yes, that was an act of love.

        • Also, I could be wrong, but I imagine the response to what I just wrote along these lines: “Well then why did God put such a system in place in the first place if he is so loving?”

          Well, that’s a good question, and I’ll answer it, but it really demonstrates that you haven’t learned as much on the subject matter as you claim. First, that system being in place wasn’t God’s choice. It was Adam’s. God gave Adam free will (love), he gave him a choice whether or not to stay in paradise, or ignorance, or to be enlightened (love), he explained what the consequences were for being enlightened (love), and when Adam disobeyed the rules, he wasn’t immediately killed or burned alive for eternity, which God certainly was capable of doing(love again). Now, if Adam was to ever make it back into God’s good graces, which he had fallen out of due to his own enlightened choices, there would have to be a way for him to do that, wouldn’t there? So God provided one (love again. still.) The fact that the earth had become a place subject to harsh and cruel realities was not God’s choice, it was a choice he let mankind make for themselves. Just as you or I or anyone has standards for behavior and conduct, God does as well, and while he doesn’t do what is undoubtedly within his power to do to punish us immediately, the rules of reality state that actions have consequences. Anything else would be profoundly unfair. There is no justice in that, and certainly no love.

          Sorry to go off on the evangelical rant, but some things I cannot abide being so grossly misrepresented.

        • I am actually greatly enjoying this conversation/argument but this forum and format is not really the correct venue.

          I respect everyone’s opinion who has given me rebuttals but I’m going to bow out for the time being.

          -TB

    • Would Mr Robertson be attacked if he were, say, a Muslim, and quoted the Qur’an (say, 7:80-84)? You have your answer right there. Really, if American Muslim was taken off the air not for bad ratings, but for one of the cast’s statements re. Islam and homosexuality, the executive responsible for sacking the show would find himself living under armed guard, in a hotel. The reality is that most major religions condemn homosexuality, and this includes groups like Orthodox Judaism and the Baha’i faith. I personally support gay rights, but think gay activists and their sympathizers are playing a very stupid and dangerous game, by attacking people’s religious convictions.

      Politics is playing with matches, but mucking about with religion is playing with live hand grenades. The attack on Duck Dynasty from A&E probably has nothing to do with religion or sexual politics, and everything to do with murky, dirty, messy network politics. But poking the religion button is an incredibly risky thing. Up in Ontario, the Provincial Government (now led by an openly gay Premier) pushed school boards to establish gay-straight alliance clubs. Religious groups, including Salafist Muslims and Coptic Christians, Hindus united in opposition. Think about that for a moment: groups who are slaughtering each other in Egypt and India are united against gay-straight school clubs. When push comes to shove, religion comes first, and secular proponents of gay rights ignore this at their peril.

      • This. Tibetan Buddhism (the only kind I’m intimately knowledgeable about) teaches against homosexuality, also. However, when imported to America, it attracted both gay Buddhist lay people, as well as gay scholars of Buddhism. Being a pragmatic religion, Buddhist lamas decided to make an exception for the West in general, and America in particularly. One of Tibetan Buddhism’s foremost scholars of Buddhism, Dr. Jeffrey Hopkins, of the University of Virginia, is openly gay, and has had access to any and all of the innermost teachings of Buddhism.

    • Lots of people vote for more gun control too.

      Just because someone, such as RF (who I think was spot on in this article) speaks out against people who look down upon others, doesn’t mean he’s being politically correct. Or maybe he is, but what’s wrong with that? I don’t recall RF ever saying that Phil should be charged with a hate crime, or the article shouldn’t have been released.

      • Where did you get the notion that Phil Robertson was looking down upon gays? He merely stated what the Bible states – that it is an abomination unto God?

    • Except that this isn’t true anymore, as gay marriage has been approved by voters in at least four states.

      Opposition to gay marriage reminds me of opposition to freer concealed carry laws. There’s all this hyperventilating about how the sky will fall if “those people” are allowed to get their way. Then it happens and life proceeds as normal. People get up in the morning and go to work, kids go to school, dogs are still dogs, cats are still cats.

      • Well put.

        The super anti-gays in this thread really need to take a step back for a second. Here we all are on a site that not only reviews guns but talks about gun rights, and the very same people who I’m sure get angry when people call them names (like “gun nut”), mock them (like “you’re just compensating”), make ridiculous accusations (“you probably like the thought of killing someone”), and actively try to restrict their freedoms… doing basically the exact same thing to other people.

    • I think the more important truth that needs to be pointed out is that he was quoting from the bible.

      If that is what the bible says and the bible is “the word of God”, then isn’t God the one everyone should be mad at?

      Why is everyone mad at someone quoting the words of someone else?

      Where are the calls to ban or burn the bible?

      • Because many prefer to hate the messenger, or shoot them, rather than accept or dispute the message, or the source thereof. And that holds true for more than just religious/moral/ethic issues too.

    • I agree 100%. He was not being “crass”, because “crass”, in his culture, is not applicable to the situation. He was speaking as someone who interprets the Bible, and used his beliefs to color his response. Nothing to see here, folks.

      It’s the same as if he’d been asked his opinion on abortion. And “vagina” and “anus” are socially-acceptable and proper terms; was he supposed to use crasser terms?

      Free speech, in an answer to a media question that was probably designed to elicit something even MORE controversial. And how the heathen rage…..

    • +1

      RF seems to be taking the Mom’s Demand Action tone on free speech… “If what you say makes me uncomfortable, it’s not protected”. You shouldn’t throw out the baby with the bath water; don’t chastise individuals with different values in an effort to unite everyone who has a love for guns!

      Another Bible verse… John 8:6-7 “They were saying this, testing Him, so that they might have grounds for accusing Him. But Jesus stooped down and with His finger wrote on the ground. But when they persisted in asking Him, He straightened up, and said to them, “He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.”
      … and…
      Leviticus 18:22 “You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.”

      That should clear things up.

    • TTAG author says homosexuality isn’t a sin, based on whose definition of sin? His? The Bible clearly says it is a sin in various scripture verses, Old and New Testament. Don’t speaketh on things thou knowest not about!

    • Great post Robt. 480 comments and climbing…mjst be a new record. Sad to see POTG attacking one another over what is a personal freedom issue. Reminds me of the conspiracy theorists who say the media is inflaming jt to distract fm Obamacare.. Well duh that’s just boring math. Hey look there’s a squirrel!

  2. The terms are, in short, hate speech.

    If this type of speech is “hate speech,” when something can be classified as hate speech because it’s rough or coarse or disagreeable, then we are all fvcked.

    Call it hate speech when it is intended to cause violence against people and I’m with you. Otherwise, I’m not playing that game, because the next person accused of hate speech won’t be the Duck Commander. It will be me. Or you.

    • hey – I simply pointed out that Shannon used her home address in Zionsville to set up MDA’s State of Indiana filing . . . . 🙂

      • I hear this “hate speech” every week in church, as well as others in millions of other churches every week around the world. Saying a sinner will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven is a bit of a stretch for hate speech. This belief in sin is not restricted to Christianity. Really Robert, how does this equate to hate speech? Smh

      • “I call it hate speech but I do not call for it to be censored or banned” is like saying “I call it a crime but I don’t advocate punishment””

        Either you believe in freedom of speech or you believe in preventing hate speech. Can’t have both. Hate speech laws can be perverted/redirected too easily for it to co-exist with freedom of speech.

        • He clearly said he calls the speech “hate speech” based on its content, not as a legal distinction in speech that should be banned and punished

        • “Either you believe in freedom of speech or you believe in preventing hate speech. Can’t have both. Hate speech laws can be perverted/redirected too easily for it to co-exist with freedom of speech.”

          Uh, why can’t you have both?

          It is absolutely possible to say that “that speech is hateful” and simultaneously say “that speech is not and should not be prohibited by law.” There’s no conflict.

          It’s called tolerance. Tolerance isn’t for what you agree with. It’s for what you don’t agree with.

      • I’m not getting any malice out of what he said. This speech control needs to be rooted out of our society, like getting a bad potato out of the potato bin.

        Is “queer” the next on the list? Gays everywhere use the term fondly, or ironically. Or whatever.

      • According to them that wield the terms, they’re the same thing. ENOUGH of minorities and their liberal handmaidens, with their media filters set perpetually on “howl”.

      • Well its not, because intent has ALWAYS been a component in the law. If tat were not the case then there would either be no such thing as justified homicide or murder. The act of killing another person would be the same regardless of the motivation behind it.

        Obviously there is a world of difference between killing a man in self defense and killing a man for his wallet, there is a difference between killing a man for his wallet and killing him out of personal spite and yet another difference when doing so for political reasons.

        There is and should be a difference in how the courts treat a murder between two feuding individuals and a murder where one individual purposely targeted and killed a person .

        • That’s called WITH MALICE AFORETHOUGHT, already incorporated into jurisprudence since at least the Magna Carta. It’s not “hate crime”.

  3. Dwight L. Moody founded Mt. Hermon in 1881 and the first graduating class (of 4) had a Black and an American Indian. and he was a well known evangelist (i.e., Dwight L Moody Bible Institute in Chicago).

  4. Robertson must have known that this comment would inflame both homosexuals and heterosexuals.

    First, anything but lavish praise, exhortation, and 100% support of their “rights” will earn you the wrath of the homosexual lobby.

    Secondly, I don’t see that many heterosexuals being “inflamed” unless you’re talking about the folks at the NYTimes, HuffPo, and others like that.

    • Sorry, bub. I’m 65, white, and devoutly heterosexual – and I’m pretty damned offended by beard-boy’s rant. Whether that equates to “inflamed” is a matter of semantics. His statements on gays, and pre-rights-era “happy negroes” only prove one thing to me: he has never engaged either in meaningful conversation, and likely never will.

      He will probably never lynch someone, or drag a young homosexual to death behind his car, but his words, as a public figure, ratify the beliefs of fools who may.

      • And I’m 67, white, and devoutly heterosexual. And I don’t give a rat’s azz what he said, because he expressed HIS view, not mine, and he’s entitled to do that by the Creator, just like it says on that paper we all point to so much here in the very first amendment of the bunch.

      • @leadbelly

        If you’re easily “offended” that’s a good sign that you are holding a leftist position and in an intellectually losing position (which is the typical default condition of leftist “thinking”). i.e. Leftists are ALWAYS offended about something or the other or one of a million other things.

        • I’ve already stated – many, many times – that I can best be described as an “armed hippie”, so, yes I hold a number of firm opinions that many on this site would consider far to the left, on social and economic issues. I also believe just as strongly in values and political issues that most modern “liberals” would view as far right conservative. I see no reason to conform to ANYONE else’s set of criteria for either tag.

          Yes, I do have a degree, in history. I’m also a voracious reader, on average three or four books a week – mostly history, science and medicine, travel, archaeology, with the occasional cop novel thrown in sort of as mental chewing gum.

          The most valuable part of my education, though, has come from my work as a student, collector, and performer of traditional music from the American South. Over the last forty years I’ve worked with people from so far back in the bayous, up in the hollers, or down on the delta that they make the Duck Boys look like Wall Street brokers. I’ve also worked with scholars from a number of universities as well as the Smithsonian and the Library of Congress. I don’t say this to brag. I’m just trying to say that between my music buddies, an occasional Hell’s Angel or two, a few fairly good natured felons of various stripes, and the random human flotsam and jetsam ( including all manner of sexual iconoclasts) of an ….interesting?….life, I’ve formed what I hope is a pretty clear picture of the human animal, in all his/her glory. And all I can hear in some of the comments above is a distressing ignorance of what constitutes truly good and moral behavior in life.

          That Which Offends You Does NOT Necessarily Harm You, no matter how butthurt people with sexual, religious, racial, or philosophical differences may make you feel.

          Now, I’m going to really put my neck on the block, just to let some of the louder voices on here know that I give no weight to their favorite source of authority.

          I am an atheist. I don’t really want bible stories, the words of some flea-ridden Bronze Age “prophets”, or guidelines on who to stone to death. These are not “arguments”, they are a reference to an authority that I do not recognize.

          Don’t tell me “god” says gays are bad. There is no “god”.

          The ONLY basis for a valid code of morals is the good old fashioned “golden rule”. Do Unto Others(flamboyant gays) As You (in-your-face open carry fan) Would Have Them Do Unto You. Does that mean anything to you?

          Gays don’t want you to be like them. They don’t even care if you LIKE them, if you mind your own business. For the most part, the issue of gay marriage is a legal and economic question for the folks who actually have a dog in this fight. They want the tax advantages that Uncle Sugar has bestowed on other married couples. They want the right to inherit, and to bestow their inheritance upon their spouses and adopted children. They want to be able to legally compel a straying spouse to continue to support children they may have adopted together, or provide for a partner abandoned in failing health or penury. They are not demanding privileges that you are I don’t already have, unless you are so offended by their very existence that you think the right to live in society is a privilege.

          Without a deity, who’s got your back? Can you support ANY of your complaints, condemnations, accusations, or fears based on human reality? Remember- “Do unto others…”?

          The various posts and comments here that have bumped into the private world of sexuality over the last week or so have so thoroughly pissed me off that I’m really starting to question just how many people on this blog and forum I really share anything with, other than the The Second Amendment and a lifelong love of guns.

          At this point, I believe I’m just going to step back fromTTAG for a week or three, and perhaps just observe from a distance. Once I cool down, maybe I’ll be back.

        • Leadbelly Gays don’t want you to be like them. They don’t even care if you LIKE them, if you mind your own business. For the most part, the issue of gay marriage is a legal and economic question for the folks who actually have a dog in this fight. They want the tax advantages that Uncle Sugar has bestowed on other married couples. They want the right to inherit, and to bestow their inheritance upon their spouses and adopted children. They want to be able to legally compel a straying spouse to continue to support children they may have adopted together, or provide for a partner abandoned in failing health or penury. They are not demanding privileges that you are I don’t already have, unless you are so offended by their very existence that you think the right to live in society is a privilege.

          That is bull sh!t and if you believe it then you are naive. If they were offered all the benefits of married people without the recognition of marriage they would not be happy. Here in our state it was once proposed to give them the tax benefits and some of the other crap and they were not satisfied. Even when they get what they ask for they aren’t happy and want more. Now they are attempting to force church’s to allow them to marry.

          You are also wrong about them not caring if you like them or not. They do care and they want to everyone to accept them. They also want their lifestyle in your face at all times. I don’t care what someones sexual preference is but I am sick of hearing about it. I also think it is disgusting on a personal level and nothing will ever change that.

          OH yeah i’m 6’10” so my opinion matters more than yours /sarc. Stupid!

        • They have at their disposal something much better than “tax advantages”. It’s called “don’t pay taxes.” Imagine how much leftover love there’d be if gays and straights got together in a rousing game of “don’t pay taxes”!!

          See? The nation gets better, as does its citizens, and that rising tide lifts gay and straight boats alike.

        • Leadbelly – Like you, I’m becoming aware that I have a lot of differences with some people in the RKBA camp. But there are just as many around here that I’ve got a lot of views in common with too.

          And as students of history, we both know that the people in this country have pretty much not agreed with each other on anything since day one. One of those disagreements is why the Bill of Rights was created in the first place.

          So as annoyed as I get at some of these characters, at least I agree with them about something.

    • Really, what is wrong with the words vagina and anus? I could think of so many more offensive words to describe those parts of the human anatomy. I don’t find anything he said vile or offensive. That is no more vile or offensive than homosexuality itself.

  5. Wow. Heavy.

    Ive always known, or at least its been made abundantly clear to me in the last year that gun owners ‘gun nuts’ are the lefts last niggers.

    Come out of the closet, get involved. We outnumber them… for now.

    • If you don’t count guys who just have dad’s old Remington 870 stashed in the closet…in other words, only including those who either use or are prepared to use firearms…do gun people outnumber the Leftists?

      • No, possibly not. Be our numbers are swelled by people that will get out and vote, send money and make their voices heard. All the nasty comments and internet bluster, which ive watched for years in varying cycles, is all talk at the end of the day.

        Whoever actually shows up wins.

        In the broadest terms, the forces of ‘gun control’ seem to be confined to a handful of billionaires and the foundations they endow and the natural authoritarian inclinations of politicians in DC.

        State and local level factors not withstanding, which are different in different places, if there is a grassroots for civilian disarmament, Ive never seen it. I live in Los Angeles, and ‘gun control’ wins by default, but that’s a different story.

        • Oh, I think we’re more motivated as a whole than the advocates of Civilian Disarmament, and in a swing state such as Colorado this can make a difference…witness the recent recalls. But look at NY: thousands of pro-gun advocates rally (compared to virtually none on the other side), and what difference does it make? Draconian measure after measure is still passed.

        • Then we fight in the courts. I think my point is, we never give up while gun grabbers wax and wane.

          A liberal atheist self described socialist ‘gun nut’ (we argue back and forth all the time) neighbor of mine says we care more because we have to.

          In occupied CA, our liberty and livelihood could be on the line. That’s how I got involved, I wanted an AR15 after I got out of the military and the implications of owning one in CA brought politics home in a big way.

          I got my AR and a couple more. Ive fought like hell to keep them.

        • Then we fight in the courts. I think my point is, we never give up while gun grabbers wax and wane.

          And is some respects we’re winning…just look at concealed carry law today vs. 30 years ago.

          I’m just pessimistic about the long-term prospects.

    • What do you hope to accomplish dropping n-bombs?
      You aren’t helping bring anyone to the cause using such loaded and ugly language, especially when it is pure hyperbolic language

      • No hyperbole intended. I mean it exactly like you think I do.

        People that support the free exercise of the right to keep and bear arms are the last minority its okay to abuse, ridicule and disenfranchise.

        Its an ugly word for an ugly concept. Seemed like a good fit to me.

        • And you nail it. Shying away from the words that accurately portray what is happening is surrender to the enemies of the human race, leftists/progressives/democrats, whatever lying name they apply to themselves.

          If you refuse to engage an enemy using their own weapons and tactics YOU WILL LOSE. Period. Full stop.

        • You use hyperbole but like I said using that language is ridiculous because it pushes people away from supporting you, mainly because of your delusion.

          Being a second amendment supporter or believer in a ideal, is no way the same as being put down because you are black or any racial demonization or discrimination based on what you are. If you can’t see the difference in what you are and what you believe trying to make the argument you are making shouldn’t even be attempted because you don’t have the level of sophistication or nuance to present it.

    • Online, in the past year (only), I’ve been called “racist”, “gay basher”, far right fascist gun nut, conspiracy theorist, and “communist”, to name but a few. None of them mattered to me one iota.

  6. Did Robertson say “fag” anywhere? If so I didn’t see it. “Crass”? Yeah right.

    http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/12/phil_robertsons_detractors_advance_his_message.html

    “…Papa Robertson also referred to female and male body parts as if he were reading out of a public school edition of Human Sexuality for Fifth-Graders.

    Liberals who are determined to force kindergartners to use clinical terms for genitalia are now saying Phil Robertson’s comments were crude.”

  7. I can’t believe that this “controversy” has raged for so long.

    It has nothing to do with speech suppression or animus towards someone’s deeply held religious beliefs. If you are enough of a public figure that you are known to be affiliated with a company (say, A&E) and you make a statement that might offend that company’s customers, you don’t get to say “Oh, but this is just my personal opinion.” Like it or not, you just spoke for the company. And the company has no choice but to respond–otherwise, they will lose customers and may even have legal liability if the statements can be construed by employees as promoting a “hostile work environment”

    If you’re not a public figure, go ahead, say anything you want. If you want a TV show on A&E, then don’t say anything that might piss off A&E.

    It’s so simple that even an idiot should be able to understand it (though, apparently, he did not)

    • That phill guy dosen’t speak for a&e if anything the gay activists should target mr Robinson’s company. Secondly why do people want him fired why cant people just say this guy is a ass im not watching his show why does gladd have to call for the network to fire him

    • JohnnyMac is absolutely correct. This isn’t about rights, It’s about money. If Phil wants to be on that show, he should keep his opinions on a segment of A&E viewership to himself or produce the show himself.

    • Sorry, A&E went to them and pitched this show idea, knowing full well what their personal and religious beliefs are. All that said, A&E is taking it in the a$$ over this and I figure they are going to cave when all is said and done. Money talks and bullsh*t walks, especially politically driven bullsh*t.

  8. Well…I didn’t read it all.

    Homosexuality is a sin. It is chapter and verse pulled from the bible. Deny homosexuality is a sin, deny Gods word. Deny (read be unrepentant) Gods word, and the kingdom is not yours. Repent…and the kingdom is yours again, through Gods grace, not your actions.

    To believe any less is to be a “buffet Christain” who thinks they follow Gods word but selectively edits the parts that are “hard” or “not cool as defined by the world” or “maybe sorta kinda possibly offensive” or…and I’m flying…

    • To believe any less is to be a “buffet Christain”

      FYI…a lot of us aren’t Christians to begin with. That being the case, quoting chapter and verse is less effective than you might wish.

      • Joseph was well versed in the scriptures. Why didn’t he just have Mary stoned? It’s just not that simple. He chose compassion over the letter of the law.

        • IF you believe the Bible, Joseph was considering calling the whole thing off, and sending her back to her mom and dad, quietly. At that time, if the woman wasn’t a virgin, the man had the right. If you believe the Bible, God told Joseph what was going on, and to accept Mary as his wife.

      • Actually, considering the fact that approximately three quarters of the US population identifies as Christian, while approximately 9% identify as atheist, quoting scripture resounds heavily with the vast majority of the country.

        *EDIT* I just looked up a citation because undoubtedly someone will demand one. The ARIS (American Religious Identification Survey) study in 2001 found approximately 77% of Americans identified as Christian, and that dropped to 76% in 2008.

      • No no, you just don’t understand. Sheepdog is a TRUE Christian, who also follows all of the other verses of Leviticus. Not some buffet Christian that would just pick out the gay stuff because he is too afraid to just say he doesn’t like something, he needs to point at the bible with a “He made me do it!” sign.

        Burning any yeast or honey in offerings to God (2:11)

        Failing to include salt in offerings to God (2:13)

        Eating fat (3:17) – All fat is to be saved for offerings to God.

        Touching an unclean animal (5:2) – IOW all the good tasting ones.

        Drinking alcohol in holy places – (10:9) Wine at mass.

        Eating an animal which doesn’t both chew cud and has a divided hoof (cf: camel, rabbit, pig) (11:4-7)

        Eating – or touching the carcass of – any seafood without fins or scales (11:10-12)

        Eating – or touching the carcass of – eagle, the vulture, the black vulture, the red kite, any kind of black kite, any kind of raven, the horned owl, the screech owl, the gull, any kind of hawk, the little owl, the
        cormorant, the great owl, the white owl, the desert owl, the osprey, the stork, any kind of heron, the hoopoe and the bat. (11:13-19) – True Christians don’t do any wing shooting I guess.

        Eating – or touching the carcass of – flying insects with four legs, unless those legs are jointed (11:20-22)
        Eating any animal which walks on all four and has paws (good news for cats) (11:27)

        Eating – or touching the carcass of – the weasel, the rat, any kind of great lizard,the gecko, the monitor lizard, the wall lizard, the skink and the chameleon (11:29)

        Eating – or touching the carcass of – any creature which crawls on many legs, or its belly (11:41-42)
        Going to church within 33 days after giving birth to a boy (12:4) [Actually, she’s unclean a week, and then another 33 days. Then she has to offer up a sacrifice.]

        Going to church within 66 days after giving birth to a girl (12:5) [Actually, she’s unclean a week, and then another 66 days. Then she has to offer up a sacrifice.]

        Having sex with a woman during her period (18:19) [15:24 simply says the man will be considered unclean for 7 days. In 20:18, “Both of them are to be cut off from their people”]

        Giving your children to be sacrificed to Molek (18:21) [In 20:2, the person is to be stoned to death.]

        Having sex with a man “as one does with a woman” (18:22) [In 20:13, both are to be put to death.] – Yes, the gay stuff is the VERY NEXT verse after worrying about Molek. I don’t remember Jesus ever talking about Molek, but everything in here is 100% true, so Molek exists, and we need to keep people from sacrificing children to him.

        Making idols or “metal gods” (19:4) – Statue of Liberty? Crap. We are all going to burn. Does Kerry King count as a metal god?

        Reaping to the very edges of a field (19:9)

        Picking up grapes that have fallen in your vineyard (19:10)

        Holding back the wages of an employee overnight (19:13) – Well at least we know Sheepdog is a socialist now.

        Mixing fabrics in clothing (19:19)

        Planting different seeds in the same field (19:19)

        Eating fruit from a tree within four years of planting it (19:23)

        Trimming your beard (19:27) – Duck Dynasty obviously keeping kosher on this.

        Cutting your hair at the sides (19:27)

        Getting tattoos (19:28)

        Not standing in the presence of the elderly (19:32)

        Mistreating foreigners – “the foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born” (19:33-34) – At this point I guess all true Christians must be in the Green party.

        Working on the Sabbath (23:3)

        Selling land permanently (25:23)

        Go pick up a Jefferson Bible if you are an American and a Christian, it has everything you need and nothing you don’t.

        • Eating – or touching the carcass of – flying insects with four legs, unless those legs are jointed

          That’s not much of a restriction…

        • I am guessing you didn’t go to church or didn’t pay attention there, cause you missed the whole point of Jesus and why we don’t follow Leviticus.

        • Verbal,

          Old Testament = Law
          New Testamant = Grace

          “Do not think that I (Christ) came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill” Matthew 5:17

    • I really hope you’re a brilliant scholar at ancient Aramaic and Hebrew in order for you to so eloquently explain the meanings of those thousands year old texts to us. I hope you also keep completely kosher and follow all of the other rules laid out for the righteous to follow. Or are you in fact a hypocrite?

    • That’s preposterously unrealistic… So if you neighbor cheats on her husband
      You’ll stone her to death? I don’t think so.

    • Sheepdog, that is indeed what the Bible says. Christianity, is really an all or nothing experience. The “Buffet” approach isn’t acceptable by Bible terms. Many pick and choose, out of ignorance or out of they don’t like what parts say. Sometimes we get “mostly harmless” to outsiders sects and sometimes we get “Jim Jones” or “Tony Alamo” cults, and sometimes in between. (Westboro Baptist is also a good example and how bad their behavior is is apparent to all but them.)

  9. The guy (Phil Roberson) is a actor and what he said is all part of the ACT… The man wants to be big in his public’s eye … he is being a part of the show …good or bad for us does not count, but money for the DUCK D. WE may never see the real man!

    • If you’d followed these guys before the A&E show you’d know that what you see is what you get, they’re not actors and they’re not out there promoting some kind of fake image.

    • Actually, you can, and many people have, and do, see “the real man.” He’s a preacher, with a Master’s degree, for what that’s worth. But back on point, he gives sermons regularly and I’ve watched several of them online. That Phil Robertson is the same one you see on the show, and is absolutely the “real” one.

    • That is the real Phil. I have know the man since the early 90’s. He is educated and successful. He is very down to earth and what you see is what you get. I suspect that is why people want to tear him down.

  10. I agree with RF completely. For people who the 2A is a pressing issue, these other cultural issues will just be used to divide us.

        • I’ll step in here for Paul and give the answer I believe he would approve of, “It matters not the length nor quality of your life, what matters only is the decision you make for Christ”. Christ is more important.

        • Christ is more important.

          For Christians…sure, why not? Whatever turns your crank.

          For the rest of us…not so much.

      • Yeah… I disagree there.

        The second amendment solidifies the sustainability of the rest…

        And freedom is 100x more important than religious married people getting their feelings hurt.

        Jesus hung out with tax collectors and prostitutes. I boggles my mind that people really believe Jesus would be cool with any kind of bigotry.

        • Hate to break it to you, TheBear, but the first amendment is equally as important as the second (as the third, fourth, et al).

        • I don’t think you understood what I meant. I didn’t say the 2nd was most important. Please reread what I wrote.

  11. RF – I love TTAG and I like what you guys do here. I agree with your gun rights position emphatically, however you’re wrong here about homosexuality, right from the get go. Don’t need to read beyond the first few sentences. If you are Jewish as you have said you are, then you believe in the Old Testament as it is written and in Leviticus 18:22 God says homosexuality is an abomination. You may not like it and you may not even agree with it but it is written and you cannot deny that.

    Wheelgun

    • If you are Jewish as you have said you are, then you believe in the Old Testament as it is written

      Do you really think this is the case for most Jews today? I have a number of Jewish friends, and not a single one of them believes that the Old Testament is the literal Word Of God.

      • Yep, being Jewish is an ethnicity as well. Like you said, it doesn’t mean they subscribe their own people’s beliefs. It might have some explanation as to why Jews tend to vote democrat.

        • Yep, being Jewish is an ethnicity as well. Like you said, it doesn’t mean they subscribe their own people’s beliefs. It might have some explanation as to why Jews tend to vote democrat;

          Reform Judaism isn’t just an ethnicity, it’s a major subset of Judaism (the largest in the United States) which considers traditional Jewish law as a set of general guidelines rather than as a list of restrictions whose literal observance is required of all Jews.

      • I realize that not everyone likes what the Bible says, and that many have modified their beliefs to suit themselves or today’s society but that doesn’t change the Word as it is written. It has always said that and it always will. People don’t like it, just as they don’t like it when it says you cannot commit adultery etc. but it doesn’t mean it isn’t wrong just because you want it to be right. Sin is sin. It has been well defined and whether it is homosexuality, adultery, idolatry etc it is still sin. If someone wants to do what they want to do that is their business, their choice. I have no issue with someone choosing to be gay, it’s their life, their choice just as it’s someone’s choice to cheat on their spouse etc. They face the same consequences we all face without Christ. I think people need to differentiate between what they think is right and wrong and what is written in the Bible. You have every right to your beliefs and I have no issue with that at all. This country is free. But (not directed at you personally) I wish folks would quite trying to re-write the Word of God to suit themselves.

        • I think people need to differentiate between what they think is right and wrong and what is written in the Bible. You have every right to your beliefs and I have no issue with that at all. This country is free. But (not directed at you personally) I wish folks would quite trying to re-write the Word of God to suit themselves.

          I will certainly differentiate between what I believe and what’s in the Bible, since I have no belief that it (or any other collection of scriptures) is the Word of God.

        • Wheelgun, dude. I KNOW you do not follow all of Leviticus, so you are already providing false testimony. You are also using a Jewish historical document instead of the words of Jesus, and not even understanding the context under which is was written (which is as bad as an anti-gunner thinking the militia inclusion means we all should be in the nat guard). Leviticus was written during the period of Persian control of the Levant, just after the Babylonian exile. Jewish laws including no buggery were developed as a means of separating themselves from surrounding people who were ethnically identical in order to maintain a cultural identity.

          Being a Jewish law it has zilch to do with the New Testament or Christianity. Later on the church and English kings issued bans on manlove because it was seen, as it had when Leviticus was written and in ancient Greece, Rome, pretty much up until the early modern period, as an affectation of the aristocracy, but even then it was only gay if you were on the receiving end. So if you don’t like gays just say so, and own it yourself.

        • Verbal, I’m replying to myself because for some reason it does not have a reply button under your comment. Anyway you are right I do not follow Leviticus, and I am not giving false testimony it does in fact say that homosexuality is an abomination. If someone claims they are Jewish they believe in the Old Testament. I agree, the New Testament has nothing to do with it. I am a Christian, I follow Christ so no I do not follow old jewish Law, Christ fulfilled the Law. I also have no hatred or dislike of homosexuals. I have known several people who are and had no issue with them. I think you did not read my post too thoroughly before you posted yours and maybe read what you thought I was saying and not what I said. Either way no harm done or intended. I respect you for your opinion and thank you for it.

    • I am catholic, not Jewish, but I think the point is that homosexuality goes against my faith; I don’t care if you sin. I won’t hate you for it. In my belief system homosexuality is wrong but outside of my belief system live as you will.

      Live and let live. Descrimination is telling you that your choices should be illegal because of my opinion on them.

      This is no different than gun rights. Let me live my life with my decisions. And I will let you live your life with yours….provided you dont decide to make my choices illegal or the cause of violence against me.

      If you believe I will go to hell for owning and carrying a gun than fine. I believe the same for homosexuals. But at the end of the day it is
      A higher powers decision not mine.

      • Fair enough…

        But anyone who really believes people will be cast into eternal damnation for sexual preferences are a little cookoo in my opinion.

        If I remember correctly, the only unforgivable sin is blasphemy against the holy spirit and nobody even really knows what that is for sure.

      • I may not be well versed in scripture but many folks like the guy at the center of all this seem to believe that it is on them to do something about gay people. Now is that a case of you being a ” buffet ” Christian or of them being wrong? Some would say you live and let live philosophy is as bad as the sin it’s self.

      • Being non-religious, I can live with that.

        Sure, preachy people are still annoying, but everyone is annoying in one way or another.

  12. He also disparaged the fornicators and the adulterers and the drunks too. Funny, you don’t hear them screaming about it.

    • Yeah because pretty much everyone is a fornicator and all the laws against it have been struck down. It’s hard to get up in arms about discrimination when there’s no weight behind it.

      Unless you’re Christian and somehow you think you’re threatened by someone saying “Happy Holidays.” 🙂

  13. My doc of fifteen + years, who is a gun guy, maintains that FedGov is not going to try and take guns away from depressed/mentally ill people. Or if they do try that whatever method they use will quickly become unsuccessful.

    He’s a smart guy, as doctors often are, so I want to agree with him. But I still am not comforted by his opinion on this matter. I tell him that. He tells me I have other things to worry about.

    • “My doc of fifteen + years, who is a gun guy, maintains that FedGov is not going to try and take guns away from depressed/mentally ill people.”
      Mentally ill is whatever the government agent says it is. It is a claim that need only be proved by a preponderance of the evidence in a civil court. Civil courts where the docket is secret and the public is not allowed to attend. A 5150 hold may be placed on anyone in California by a cops word, and a person subject to a 5150 hold is unable to possess guns for 5 years.

  14. It’s come to a point in our culture where political correctness has made it so if you want to take a point of view that is traditional, that holds to old-fashioned biblical, Christian values – which are also, by the way, values of traditional Judaism and even Islam – you’re just supposed to shut up and keep that to yourself.

    • Who said that? Nobody, but shooting off your mouth like shooting off your gun may have consequences and in either case the bill of rights offers no protection. And rightfully so.

  15. This is stupid. I thought this was “The Truth About Guns” and not “The Truth About Christianity” or “The Truth About Homosexuality.” Good grief!

        • I saw the deleted comment, and it was deleted because, once again, your comment served no purpose other than to take a shot at RF. Your other comments in this post have not done that, so they have remained.

      • “Gun Nuts” …not really the gist of the article.

        “More than that, gun owners cannot afford to be anything other than completely inclusive.”

        I disagree. We are making a stand specifically for our rights enumerated in the 2nd Amendment. Not to be all things to all people.

  16. To paraphrase: If we love one another, and let God sort out the sin, the world would be a nicer place.

    Happy Holidays to all!

        • Heinlein died in 1988, 36 years after the aforementioned comment. In his younger years he started out as something of left-leaning Democrat, but his view rapidly shifted towards Libertarianism, although he was never a Libertarian as such.

  17. Robert,
    It is well understood that we as gun owners and gun rights supporters have to do an immense amount of research to assure that we can defend our position. We have to truly understand our position inside and out.
    The problem I have with your characterization of Phil Robertson is that it seems as though you didn’t research your subject very well. If you had, I think you would have found him to be a very different person than you think he is. You would understand the context of his comments better. I may be wrong, but it appears that you may be guilty of the same thing we accuse those who don’t support gun rights of…believing what they hear from the mainstream media without questioning it and finding out for themselves.

    • Well I read the interview from start to finish. I’ve watched a number of DD episodes. I believe Mr. Robertson to be an honest, intelligent and moral man.

      As I said, I disagree with his condemnation of homosexuality. But I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and say that he is a loving Christian, aware of the frailties of all men, reserving judgement for the Lord.

      More than that, I would fight to protect his right to voice his opinions. Full stop. And I think A&E’s decision to can him was stupid.

      Now, again, what’s with the genital vs. eliminatory comparison? Would a “good” Christian make light of a matter that involves eternal damnation? Maybe he would. But as a man who is a central figure in the gun world, I don’t think he should have gone there.

      He did. His choice. But I’d like to widen the discussion to the idea that The People of the Gun should be inclusive. That we, too, face active discrimination. Which was the main point of this post.

      • “It’s certainly not the kind of language I’d expect from a “true Christian”; someone who loves the sinner but hates the sin. Nope. The comment was needlessly, heedlessly insensitive.” RF

        “I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and say that he is a loving Christian” RF

        I LOL’d

      • Robert,

        I basically agreed with you whole-heartedly.

        “More than that, gun owners cannot afford to be anything other than completely inclusive. We don’t have to agree with or even like our fellow gun owners…or non-gun owners for that matter. But our rights depend on taking the moral high ground and leaving our divisive beliefs below.”

        This should be our gospel. Guns are for all people, because that is what protects all of us. If you think homosexuality is a sin, fine. I don’t agree with you, but you’ve got the right to think that. If someone asks you about it in a GQ magazine and you respond with those particular words, fine. I think you’re wrong, but you’ve got the right to say it. I just hope when the time comes, you do the same for me and mine.

        But as an aside: who are the 12 million folks who watch DD and would want him suspended for this?

        • I believe he worded it very tactfully, although most of the words used were not his, they are straight from the bible and according to that book in his hand, all peoples who practice homosexuality are going to repent or be judged…e-ticket to hell. You can;t skirt around what the bible says. You can say I don’t worship that religion, that’s the freedom this country affords you, the debt being paid long ago by man dead soldiers, It would be wrong for him or anyone to force their religion down your throats, And nobody is….preciously the opposite actually. When a reporter asks him about his Christian beliefs and his views on biblical sin…and he answers…right from the bible…kinda hard to hold the guys feet to the fire. Its right there in black and white letters, has been for millennium.

        • Rydak,
          I completely agree with what you have said. I was not talking about his quoting scripture when I was talking about being tactful. I was more thinking of him describing his lack of understanding homosexual’s preference for men rather than women with regards to sex.
          I agree that if we call ourselves Christians, we can’t pick and choose which parts of the Bible we will follow, and which parts we won’t. Personally I agree 100% with everything that Phil Robertson said.

      • “But as a man who is a central figure in the gun world,”….lol, your efforts are “notable” and well done. But “central” ….I think the stretch is a bit much.

  18. Humbly suggest people read the actual interview in its full. These comments that were made about sin were made while him and the reporter were out in the woods driving around, not in some studio with bright lights and cameras on him. No publicist. Just him and reporter shooting the breeze basically. Not some studied analysis of societal trends by Charles Krauthammer…I don’t know about anyone else, but I’ve heard alot worse on golf carts out on the course with other OFWGs. Different generation. Different belief system. Different circumstance than what the MSM is trying to portray of Phil. Everyone is a perfect angel I guess. I judge a man by his deeds. Did anyone know that the family have adopted black children? That they pray and counsel with ANYONE on their problems? That the comments on blacks in the fields was just a random comment in the article about a nearly 70 year old guy talking about when he was a kid in the south? I don’t know about anyone else but if you start asking me about something from 50 or 60 years ago I might have a slightly rosey view of the world as a 8 or 10 year kid. Anyway I would trust Phil with my life or my money. There are lots of folks who come across as sanctimonious critics who I would step across the street if I saw them coming towards me.

    http://www.gq.com/entertainment/television/201401/duck-dynasty-phil-robertson?&currentPage=1

    • This is by far the best comment I have read so far. The author passed judgement on someone he was to lazy to research, and passes it off as fact. I expect more from this site than that…maybe I have my expectations set too high..

      • What exactly would said research reveal? That he is not I fact opposed to homosexuality? Cause that is what the author takes issue with. It seems he was very honest in that interview.

    • If you haven’t spent some time living in the South you might default to a typical n.e. Lib condescension a d miss out on the good on families like Phils.

  19. If we are gun nuts, we are in the good company of many of the founders of this country; George Mason, James Monroe, Patrick Henry, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, et. al.

  20. So, let’s continue. From a few weeks ago, us gun folk are misogynists. Then gun bullies.
    Now gun nuts.
    Geez, I’m having a really hard time keeping up.
    I wait with baited breath on the next term of endearment.

    • That word is “bated,” Tom, or “abated” with the initial “a” dropped, and its meaning is “held back,” not redolent of nightcrawlers, minnows, or other goodies that might be placed on a fish-hook.

  21. “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me.”

    This is what they taught me when I was a child.

    They were making men of boys then.

    Not so much today.

  22. Welcome to the First Ammendment, Robert.

    If you want society to respect the *Second* Ammendment, we all need to defend the First.

    Phil just said what a lot of us think. Any guy who sticks his penis up the poop chute of another man is one sick SOB.

    Don’t like that I said that?

    That’s ok.

    If I don’t like what you post on TTAG, that’s ok too.

    (My opinion is that TTAG should stick to GUNS).

  23. This is one of the best and most important posts that I’ve seen on this blog. A lot of the people commenting on it are missing the point.

    The hatred toward gun owners that we see and hear every day is indeed simple bigotry. We have to always steer the “conversation” about gun rights toward a struggle for civil rights. Because that’s what it is. And we have to be united in that fight.

    • I agree…

      And the irony of people who rail against being called gun nuts or fly into a rage over any slights against the second amendment simultaneously taking a hard core stance against gays is not lost on me.

  24. I just read every word of the GQ interview.

    Phil is not attacking people who are attracted to the same sex. He is preaching against sinful behavior – which is a huge distinction. He mentions “homosexual behavior” and other behaviors that God condemns throughout the Bible. He has an attitude of love towards everyone and wants everyone everywhere to be happy, and that’s why he preaches against behaviors that bring misery. He believes that the Bible is God’s word, and that its messages are the answer to our unhappiness (let’s face it – all our PC liberation and progress isn’t making us happy).

    Most Christians believe the exact same things he does. It is chilling to see how much persecution he is facing. Do people not know that this is Christian doctrine? Do people think we just call ourselves Christians, but we don’t really believe in things that offend modern, delicate, PC sensibilities?

    Evey Bible-believing Christian is under attack here. The mainstream culture has made it obvious that they will not tolerate Christianity in America. Mr. Robertson happens to be in the spotlight now, but it could just as easily be millions of other Americans being personally villified on TV.

      • Liberal Christianity. Be pleasant but other than that, shut up and sing your songs. The whole purpose of the movement is to throw out the doctrine entirely and just give out free hugs.

        • That is just about the perfect summation of what my parents’ church, the church I grew up in, has become.

          Their new pastor (well, he’s been there for a couple-three years now) is a big ol’ boy, and he doesn’t wear a tie, nor a jacket. (And I admit, a tie (or a suit) would probably look silly on him, unless it was very well tailored.) But he wears a short-sleeve, open-collared shirt in the pulpit on Sunday morning.

          I know, I know, “Oh, the horror!” you say. But that simple thing, in a 130-year-old Southern Baptist Church, is kind of a big deal. And moreover, it’s a physical manifestation of the many intangible changes in doctrine and practice that have occurred around that church.

          I’m going to write that line down, and pass it along. Thanks, C.

        • Spread it around as much as you can! I was paraphrasing an author. I can’t put my finger on his name at the moment. I really want to say Evan Sayet, but i wouldn’t trust myself on that. I’ll keep looking.

    • There continues to be a cultural war in this country from the beginning. The Phil Robertson controversy is just one more battle in the war against God. Regardless of your religious affiliation a blind man can see there are only two sides here: Those for God and those against. This fight is not going away, at least not for another thousand years plus change. The fight is not about guns or free speech or cheap fossil fuels or any of ten thousand distractions. The fight is about the choices you make to live a Godly life or not. Phil Robertson evidently wants to live a Godly life and all the usual suspects want him punished for that choice.

      For those who are unfamiliar with Phil Robertson’s reference to homosexual behavior being wrong, check out Romans Chapter 1 verses 26 through 28. I like several versions of the Bible including New King James — I like the language. The New American Standard version is a pretty good balance between King James time and modern English so it’s pretty understandable in its meaning. Here’s a link if you are interested:
      http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans%201:22-28&version=NASB

      And for those folks who have no use for the New Testament, check out Leviticus Chapter 20 verse 13. Another link for interested folks:
      http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=leviticus%2020:13&version=NASB

      Lastly, for folks who want to exclude the rest of the Bible and focus only on God is the God of love, there’s a New Covenant and all that, bear in mind that Paul who wrote the letter to the Romans was part of that New Covenant and he wrote extensively on the subject. The sad truth for some is that God still considers homosexuality to be wrong.

      Which brings me back to Phil Robertson, someone who mentioned homosexuality as one example of wrong behavior in an interview with a representative of the mainstream media. I don’t speak for Phil but I think I have an idea of where some of his Bible-based reasoning was when he said what he said.

      Regarding diversity, take a trip over to the National Review and read Mark Steyn’s piece called Re-Education Camp:
      http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/366943/re-education-camp-mark-steyn

      Ya gotta love this guy. He is not afraid to mix it up with the people who want to shut you and me up. He reminds me of Ted Cruz like that and in the District of Criminals both stand out like people who just won’t shut up — in a nice way.

      Everyone knows Ben Franklin’s quote about hanging. The only thing I would add is, let’s stop trying to tone down folks who have a different understanding of life, especially when they are on our side. Our true enemies are not going to be persuaded by anything we say, write or do. Let’s keep our friends close and smile when they speak their minds.

    • Good points. RF is wrong here to compare firearm rights with gay marriage. If he compared gun rights with homosexuality in general, ok, and I would certainly agree that they have the same rights as me to own firearms. However, some of what you mention alludes to the fact that the gay movement is not happy with acceptance, they want everyone to condone the act. Including Christians. As mentioned in GLAADs statement in response to this, they aren’t happy being accepted in general, they want the Christian religion specifically to accept that what has ever been sinful behavior must now be approved of due to cultural and societal pressure. ‘True Christians’ must change their faith and acquiesce to the movement.

      • This is correct. GLADD wants to figuratively (and well, literally) break it off in the Christian’s dirt chute. Again, its all part of the self hate they have for themselves, their actions. The are looking for absolution for their filth by forcing it down everyone else’s throat – pun intended.

  25. This is precisely why I’m an atheist. I am instantly suspicious of any mortal man or woman that claims to have “the truth”. Unless it’s thetruthaboutguns of course :P.

    • The only truth about guns is that .40 S&W is the perfect round, and anyone who shoots anything else is either ignorant (in that they haven’t learned the truth yet) or a heretic (in that they’ve learned the truth, but deny it).

      That’s the truth.

        • If you need to dispatch an enraged mouse, I suppose 9mm is sufficient.

          .45 ACP, on the other hand…that’s a manly round…even if it only nicks your opponent, he’s going down!

      • .40 Short and Weak is for people with small penises, .45 ACP will kill your soul, and 9×19 is for people who need the extra rounds because they can’t aim.

        Also, 10mm will annihilate tanks, .44 Magnum is the only caliber that will phase a bear in the least, and 5.56 will bounce off tinfoil, but 5.45 spreads Ebola to anyone it hits.

        • I think I’d like all that on a poster. It’d be awesome. I think I’d find some way to phrase the .40 S&W line a little differently, though.

        • “.40 Short and Weak is for people who need to compensate/can’t commit”

          Take your pick?

          Edit: Ooooh, start with .45, then, 9×19, then .40. Yeah.

          … It just occurred to me I’m more interested in this than I am the raging debate all around.

        • I like “can’t commit.”

          My .40 was my first handgun, and don’t get me wrong, I do still really like it. But when I bought it, I was laboring under two possible misconceptions. The first is that 9 mm is “not enough gun.” The second was that .45 ACP was “too much gun” for me. Both of those were based on reading stuff that other people said. At this point, over three years later, I can say with certainty that the second of those two things was completely wrong, and if I was buying that gun today, it’s about 60/40 that it’d be a .45.

        • I own guns in 9mm, .40 and .45 ACP. Like girlfriends, why stick to one? (j/k, my wife wields a mean rolling pin)

        • 9×19 is for people who need the extra rounds because they can’t aim, .45 ACP will kill your soul, and .40 Short and Weak is for people who can’t commit. .22LR will have trouble igniting, much less reaching the muzzle. 10mm will annihilate tanks, .44 Magnum is the only caliber that will phase a bear in the least, and .50AE will break the wrist of the guy in the lane next to you.

          As to rifles, 5.56 will bounce off tinfoil, but 5.45 spreads Ebola to anyone it hits. 7.62 is adequate, but good luck figuring out which 7.62. .338 Lapua is for trust fund kiddies. Lastly, Fiddy Cal is what the Navy mounted on the WWII cruisers for shore bombardment and anti-train operations.

          Joking aside for a second, an M&P Shield in .40 hurt the hell out of my hands the first few times I fired it, but actually getting some “training” (i.e. Magpul DVDs) fixed that. Amazing what changing grip will do for solving “too much gun”. I still prefer 9mm, though. Whatever. 4.5in XDm Pride! *fist pound/(insert appropriate male bonding gesture here)*

  26. I’m totally slipping into some gay apparel, and going outside to smoke a fag.

    And by gay apparel I mean colorful and festive clothing. And by smoking a fag, I mean burning a cigarette and inhaling. I do not mean shooting a homosexual.

    Words….damn tricky they are with so many different meanings. Funny how they work and how people interpret them and twist them to reveal their own prejudice.

    • ^^^
      SOMEONE who sees the original meanings of these words before being hijacked for other uses. (Well, with “fag” a slang term in this case… otherwise it would be talking about tiring/menial work or plain and simple worn out.)

  27. My uncle is gay and I know a former marine who, after a very bad divorce, decided he was gay. I don’t hate them, but they are both heavy substance abusers. A lot of gay men are, lesbians too. They are so self indulgent that they miss the forest of life for the trees of their own idle pursuits. There are certainly gay people who aren’t like this, such as Jeremy Wade from River Monsters. I love watching Jeremy fish and I was shocked when I found out he was gay. Then I realized I didn’t care and couldn’t expect an angler like him to appreciate some soft woman.

    Putting your penis in anyone’s anus is a shitty thing to do. We all know it. Even the Ancient Greeks, many of whom were most certainly fags, avoided it and preferred “femoral intercourse.” It was considered humiliating to be anally penetrated. These guys also delighted in molesting little boys.

    The reason all the Abrahamic religions condemn homosexuality is because it played such a role in the oppression of free people in the ancient world, right up through the end of the Roman Empire and even well beyond. Many Africans and Rastafarians in particular view it as a disease that the white man brought upon them when they were colonized and enslaved.

    What is the truth? Well, I personally believe that Christ is nothing more than an allegory and that Judaism, Christianity and Islam are all built on totally pagan frameworks. It is really very obvious once you factor in Astrology and notice how symbolic it all is. Christians, Jews and Muslims worship the stars and planets. It is all based on an ancient understanding of the constellations, beyond that there is a great deal of mystery. These pagan roots are also the roots of institutional, homosexual child molestation found in all three of these religions… it is a carry over of ancient, perverted practices that are intrinsic to the human psyche.

    Homosexuality is a choice, a highly personal choice. I find it weird, but it fits for some people. Others wear it as a cloak to hide their real problems. Nobody is born that way and it is not something that should be presented as normal to children, due to the huge risk of abusers taking advantage of that as they have for thousands of years.

    • No, Fug, homosexual BEHAVIOR may be a choice, but homosexuality itself, the urges underlying the behavior, are most emphatically NOT a choice, any more than heterosexuality is a choice. As a heterosexual, if indeed that is what you are, you can choose, or not, to have erotic contact with a female. But I doubt that you can choose, or not, to feel erotically attracted to females.

      • I’m inclined to agree with this. I don’t necessarily agree with homosexuality, but it’s not my life. There’s just no denying that some folks are wired differently than others, and that doesn’t just apply to sexuality. If you believe homosexuality is a choice, I’d be curious if you could tell us when you decided to be straight?

        • When I was a little boy about 6-7 I was at a roller skating rink with another boy. We went into the bathroom together. He pulls down his pants and wants me to do the same. I’m curious because I’m just a little boy, but I got scared and left him standing there. I’m not gay and have never had those desires, but I never forgot that early experience and temptation. I’ve always wondered how my desires would have turned out as I matured if I’d “played doctor” that day. Perhaps that’s all there is to it. A spiritual test you may not even recall happening to you. Maybe you passed. Maybe you failed. But it altered you spirit for the rest of your life. C.S. Lewis said, “You do not have a soul! You are a soul, you have a body.” Think about it Matt.

      • I, too, have a hard time believing homosexuality is a choice. Why would anyone CHOOSE to become part of a very small, very persecuted minority? The benefits do not outweigh the downsides. Whether or not it’s “natural” or a “psychological issue” is another argument, but it’s not a choice.

        • Sure it is a choice. Otherwise what you infer is that man does not have free will. Man can not think and reason. Man is no better than a dog or a monkey.

        • Why would someone choose to shave their head into a Mohawk and dye it flourescent green? I can’t understand when I see people like that why they would choose that lifestyle either but it is not genetic. They sat down with clippers and hair coloring and made their life what it is. Perhaps they are rebelling against their church or parents or school or whatever. But just because I can’t understand or explain it doesn’t mean they didn’t have a choice.

        • I’m pretty sure it officially occurred when I slept with my first girlfriend…see, that was a decision. Just like when a sodomite decides he is going to sleep with his first man/boy. See how that works now?

        • That’s an oversimplification, and you know it. Unless the first time you slept with a girl also happens to be the exact moment you realized you were attracted to them.

          Phrased differently, were you bi-curious prior to engaging in actual intercourse with that first girl? Had you not made up your mind yet? That’s about the only way that what you said makes any sense.

        • So until you started banging her you weren’t sure if you were looking forward to doing so, and thought, “I dunno…maybe I should do this with a guy, instead”?

          Riiiiiiight….

  28. Here’s what I think THE most important point of the post is:
    “…what’s now called diversity, what was once called tolerance and brotherhood.”

    What we have now, diversity, exemplifies the prevailing attitude in our country today – it’s all about ME. Diversity. We all each go our separate way, heedless of anyone else. Common Good. There isn’t any. It’s all about MY good; what I want, what I can get. Tolerance and brotherhood? That implies you’re as good as I am, and that just can’t be. After all, I’ve been told since birth that I’m special, unique… EXCEPTIONAL!

    You see that even here. Fudds? As opposed to what? True Believers? We divide ourselves and fight each other? Grow up and look around. We can’t afford that any more.

    I fear that unless we wake up we are truly doomed. Hand ’em over now and avoid the rush later…

  29. RF,
    Great article. I agree 100%.

    I am not just a gun owner/enthusiast, I am also a Conservative Republican. It ticks me off when I hear people claim Republicans are racists, bigots, etc… I am anything but. I may not agree with other people’s choices, but I am not calling for bans or prohibitions on their actions. I live my life through the prism of liberty and I want to educate and extend that to all people. I do not care if you are white, black, gay, straight or what have you. As long as you love freedom over dependence, self reliance over social safety nets, demand small, responsible and Constitutional government you are my brother and sister. Freedom is mankind’s greatest achievement and it is easily lost.

    _____________________

    “If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.”
    ― Samuel Adams

    • That was a pretty awesome clip. Thanks.

      I really like Louis CK. I think he does “smart” comedy. I mean, he does stupid, silly comedy, too, but not all of it is that way.

  30. Great piece, Robert. I had not considered how the term “gun nut” could be characterized as hate speech. Honestly, I’ve simply dismissed it as a term used by those who lack intellectual prowess. But, as you explain it, it makes sense.

  31. I gotta say that was quite the rant. Mighty interesting. I would like to point out that I used to work in journalism all the way through my college career before forsaking it and never looking back. I could have made a decent living but it was not worth my conscience to debase my sensibilities in order to satisfy others, particularly when some of those people were found wanting of character, conscience, and moral turpitude. That was in the spring of 1993. I may have been a failure for the most part at life since then, but my conscience is still clear on the matter.

    My main course of studies in college were psychology and history. So I understand things like emotion, motives and of course, politics. All the more so since my primary interest in history has been of the United States, during the Civil War and the two World Wars, and world history since 1900 or thereabouts.

    The use of the term fags and gays is RAMPANT in public schools, (I’m sure Lola can confirm this) from a distressingly young age. It’s rarely used as a descriptive epithet, instead it’s just thrown out as teenage banter. But it does have an effect over time. And it’s pretty rampant even among adults as inmature banter, too. Funny thing is, I graduated from a private Catholic boys-only high school in the mid 80’s, and never, not even once was I called a fag, even though hazing was brutal and widespread. So IMO it’s a more recent trend, eventually to be replaced with another.

    Mr. Robertson was interviewed by a reporter from GQ magazine, which is well known for its liberal bent. The reporter asked Mr. Robertson about his opinion on homosexuality, and he answered it. It would be well worth keeping in mind that this was a classic set up and hack job on the part of the ‘journalist.’ He, the reporter, knew full well that Robertson either had to answer truthfully, or not at all, in which case the reporter would answer for him. Simply put, it was a no-win situation. But, as I was, he answered truthfully and his conscience is clear. As for the reporter, well…..I suppose he may well be asked to explain himself to a higher authority someday. Man proposes, God disposes.

    For my own part, whenever someone calls me a gun nut, I tell them thanks for the compliment. Perhaps it helps that I can intimidate almost anyone with my demeanor should I choose to do do so. But you know what? There’s no difference between a gun nut and a woman who likes to shop. The impulse is precisely the same. Men just like their toys the same way women like theirs. That’s all there is to it.

    I’ve spent much of the day thinking about that Bateman fella, and how culture wars are to the death, as Ralph said once. That’s one thing that has definitely changed over the last several years. It used to be that gun control advocates simply wanted more laws, however foolish and misguided. Now there has been a sea change over the past decade or so, and it’s not so much a matter of more laws as a war of extermination. It’s early yet, but make no mistake, that is their ultimate goal. I honestly don’t know what to do about it any more than the next person. And I don’t think anyone does. So we get what we have here – millions and millions of people buying more guns and more ammo, and waiting for the inevitable. I used to to think that a civil war wouldn’t happen again for at least 50 years, certainly not in my lifetime. Now I’m turning 45 tomorrow, and not only do I not expect to live long enough to collect my Social Security, I’m not sure I won’t be killed in the next civil war within anywhere from 3 to 20 years from now. I know all too well from knowledge of history that stuff like this has a real way of going to hell in a big hurry, before anyone even realizes it. Thought about sending Esquire a letter explaining all this to them re: Bateman, but decided it a waste of time. Maybe that, too, is a mistake.

    Tom

  32. You don’t have to like someones lifestyle, but denying them the ability to enjoy the legal protections that a marriage certificate gives means you’re projecting beyond personal dislike.

    Also people who care/defend what a bunch of reality show faux-rednecks think really need to check themselves.

      • “Marriage” is not two men hooking up to Sodomize each other.

        It now is in over a third of US states, and the rest will shortly follow.

        Get over it.

        • Nope, sorry, “marriage” is marriage, not whatever any law says it is. Most of these “laws” are not laws, but only court decisions by activist judges anyway.

        • Nope, sorry, “marriage” is marriage, not whatever any law says it is.

          Marriage is a socially or ritually recognized union or legal contract between spouses that establishes rights and obligations between them, between them and their children, and between them and their in-laws. It’s what the law says it is by definition.

          Most of these “laws” are not laws, but only court decisions by activist judges anyway.

          Roe v. Wade was just a court decision…did that lessen its impact in any way?

    • I think you’re mistaken about the “faux rednecks” part. It seems to me that the Robertson’s were the same people before they got famous as they are now.

        • I never called them “folk of the hills,” my comment is more that they are the same people, more or less.

          I googled what you said, and yeah, they looked different before. So? In most cases the “before” pictures look like they were at least 10-15 years ago. I know lots of people who look dramatically different now than they did 10-15 years ago, but with a few exceptions, none of them have changed who they are.

      • Absolutely. How many here know that Phil Robertson was the backup quarterback to Terry Bradshaw at LSU? Was drafted by the Washington Redskins, but eschewed the NFL because it cut into his hunting season?

  33. The problem being is that homosexuals do not reciprocate, so to speak. They do not accept your right to freedom of speech or thought. Nor do homosexuals accept that you have a right to keep and bear arms. Homosexuals are part of the radical left coalition against freedom. They would put you in jail for using “fag” or for owning a gun. You are under the mistaken impression that you being accepting of their difference will be reciprocated. They will not. They, like most Marxists, are in this for the power over you. You can wish it away, claiming tolerance, but the only thing you will get in return is a jackboot on your neck. Owning a gun is inherently heterosexual, and that is not tolerated by the wannabe Stalinists at GLAAD and their homosexual supporters, as well as the rest of the radical left.

    With regard to Robertson’s statements on the nature of homosexuality. He did not use any profanity or personal insults. He just described what male homosexuals do, which is anal intercourse. It may be to you unseemly to discuss this, but that is what homosexuality is all about. The truth makes many squeamish, but there was no use of “fag” or any other insult by Robertson in the GQ interview. To suggest that is wrong and insulting to Robertson. And just a little bit Stalinist yourself. You go from Robertson talking about the nature of homosexual behavior, anal intercourse, to talking about insults and the use of “fag” which cleverly suggested but did not come out and say that Robertson did the same.

    But in the end, despite your pandering, you will be in the concentration camp along with all other gun owners if the radicals at GLAAD and other homosexuals ever get in power. Sort of like what Obama, Jesse Jackson, and Al Sharpton want to do with gun owners, especially white gun owners; put gun owners in jail.

    People of the gun have a choice now. Surrender their rights to the radical left, like Obama and homosexual activists, or get in the whole fight, which is immigration control, ending racial discrimination against whites, and traditional Judeo-Christian morality.

    None on the left support the Second Amendment, especially not immigrants, blacks, or homosexuals. And trying the plan of surrendering on some issues, like homosexuality, in the hopes that the left, like a crocodile, will eat you last, is a strategy of surrender and failure.

    • The lack of immigrants, homosexuals, and people on the left in the ranks of gun owners could be because they don’t feel welcome here.

      Rather than counting on the hard right to save gun rights for us, which is a terrible strategy because they’ll eventually become irrelevant and start losing national elections, we should be drawing in new members from every group.

      The Bill of Rights, and the Second Amendment, belong to all Americans.

      • The lack of immigrants, homosexuals, and people on the left in the ranks of gun owners could be because they ideologically oppose us on all levels?

        • So? There are always people changing views and opinions. Imo the spread probably has more to do with geographical location. left leaning blacks tend to be city dwellers, that is also where most black people live. The same is true of Jewish people and even gay people.

          At one time or another in each groups history there was a significant migration to urban areas where government dependency tends to be a fact of life. Upon being freed many blacks found life in rural areas all but impossible. For European immigrants after the turn of the century there simply was no opportunity for most to seek rural lives, arm land was all claimed and economic conditons made such a venture look less than wise.

          For gays during the last century the choice was often self oppression assault or fleeing to anonymity in a city. In each case the result was a large visible portion of each group dwelling in locations that encouraged acceptance of authority as it was the authority that made the water flow the trash vanish and the trains run (if not always on time) so when ever something afflicts the people of these areas where do they turn for help?

          I can tell you first hand that gay Jewish black people and an other sub group you care to name when born and raised in conservative areas rarely stray from the local center. Being dead center of the country and near a decent sized city I see people of all stripes.

      • Since immigrants, homosexuals, and minorities oppose the Second Amendment, it is entirely irrelevant that they may or may not feel welcome. And it is clear they opposition to the Second Amendment is not based on feeling unwelcome, but an ideological contempt for God given rights and the Constitution what was written by white, Christian, heterosexual males. Therein lies their opposition. Anyway, since rights express in the Second Amendment come from God, that may be one of the reasons that homosexuals don’t like that right. They have an open disagreement with God over His policies. One must also state that all those groups also oppose free speech, freedom of religion, and the right to a fair trial (just ask George Zimmerman if homosexuals, immigrants and blacks supported his right to a fair trial).

  34. Why do people talk about the bigoted Phil Harrison being kicked off a tv show.
    That isn’t a issue of free speech violation, it is private business, not governmental. He is free to say all the stupid shit he wants, his employer has simply said continuing to do so after he was warned means he will not longer be paid.

    Good riddance I say.

    As for marriage, I’m against the government being in the marriage business period.

    • Just as you are free to show your bigotry toward his perceived bigotry. (real or falsified, doesn’t matter.)

      bigot – noun – a person who is utterly intolerant of any differing creed, belief, or opinion.

      Origin:
      1590–1600; < Middle French ( Old French: derogatory name applied by the French to the Normans), perhaps < Old English bī God by God

      (courtesy dictionary.com)

    • Actually David, it came close. Had A&E pushed this ban farther they would have used contract law to silence Mr Robertson and that right there would have been government silencing speech, if only by proxy. Going to a judge is using the armed force of government against your opponent. Then again, you could lose depending on the judge. Its a crap shoot. Does not change the fact that government would have become involved and very likely would have silenced Mr Robertson at the behest of an corporate entity. Scary, isn’t it?!?!

  35. So, by you, Robert, “vagina” and “anus,” both non-vulgar terms for features of human anatomy, are not words that should pass the lips of a “true Christian?” Do tell.

  36. What Phil said was certainly not crass, especially in the context of 2 guys hanging out in the woods and talking, which is where the interview took place. It’s actually refreshingly honest. There will always be Christians that view homosexuality as a sin. This is NOT hate speech. Phil doesn’t hate gay people; he simply believes that one of their behaviors is incompatible with living a bible based life. If that is hate speech to you then you’ll simply need tougher skin.

    • Excellent point PW in KY. Farrago writes like a simpleton. Vagina and anus are clinical terms used most often by doctors and biologist. You want to hear crass? Bring a man who wishes to ream another mans anus for sexual pleasure into a Marine infantry platoon. You’ll remember Vagina and Anus with a warm feeling. Homosexuality is a disgusting perversion. It creates nothing. It is incredibly prone to the transmission of disease. It creates low self esteem in the practitioner. It gains its thrill from the nastiness and deviance of what is occurring. And, most importantly, it is in NO WAY comparable to men and women coupling in love from which ALL human life comes from.

      • Oh lord I know I shouldn’t go there … but what the heck….

        If it was just peeny weenies being where they shouldn’t I could almost forgive it. But the gay lifestyle is soooo much more. One has to read the book on the origin of AIDS titled THE RIVER. I literally couldn’t get past the first 100 pages. The behavior was straight out of the Bible. Like in Sodom and Gamorrah. Sickening.

  37. I personally don’t have a problem with the term “Gun Nut” and don’t get offended when I get called one, or a Jesus freak either.

  38. I thought this was a good article.

    For the most part I agreed 100% with RF. However, logic and integrity forces me to say this:

    RF: You can’t really call anyone else crass after writing about women the way you do. Perhaps in the light of this excellent piece you wrote, you should do a little bit of self analysis and explore the portions of your writing that cause people to think you’re a mysogynist chest thumper.

    My girlfriend finds any piece of writing you ever do that has anything to do with women or a particular woman to be creepy and hard to read in the extreme.

    If we are going to be inclusive of gays (which I believe we should be) who are a tiny minority of the population, perhaps we should be more inclusive of women as well who comprise OVER 50% OF THE FUCKING WORLD.

    • I just reread what I wrote here and it comes across a bit more serious than I’d intended.

      This was supposed to be more tongue-in-cheek than it reads.

      My point still stands, though. The AI need to practice what we preach.

    • +999999999999999

      RF tends to write about women like they’re pieces of meat, and very, very few of TTAG regular contributors are women. RF for the most part has done a great job expanding the perception of people of the gun beyond straight, white, male Christians, but he just can’t help himself when it comes to pairing weapons with female flesh for page views.

      • Homosexuals are about 3% of the population, but RF wants us to cower before their Stalinist thugs, but then needlessly insults women who are much more pro-gun than homosexuals. I wonder why? Not that there is anything wrong with that.

        • Sad. So sad. How do you know what percentage of the population is gay, by hanging out at gay bars?

  39. Ok theman it’s like i said its all bs But who do you not want to be forced to watch on tv the Robertsons or the Harrison’s? Don’t forget it’s all bs. Is it bigotry orignorance? Or???? Im a duck hunter and I don’t watch DC or Pawn stars.I do read the Bible however and it is not bs

    • So it’s “Robertsons”, but it’s “Harrison’s”? How did you decide which one got the apostrophe and which didn’t? Did you only have one left?

      WHO ARE THE HARRISONS? Or the “HARRISON’S”?

  40. Quite a can of worms you opened there, RF.
    I choose to remain indifferent. Phil was sacked by his employer, not the government.
    This article falls under the “calculated risk” category doesn’t it?

  41. Ok theman it’s like i said its all bs But who do you not want to be forced to watch on tv the Robertsons or the Harrison’s? Don’t forget it’s all bs. Is it bigotry or ignorance? Or???? Im a duck hunter and I don’t watch DC or Pawn stars.I do read the Bible however and it is not bs

  42. IMHO, the secret to us all getting along together is for us to stop being so damned thin skinned.

    Where’s Mel Brooks when we need him?

    • Hell, where’s your secretary when we need her, Governor?

      Speaking of which, I heard a recent interview with Mel Brooks in which he admitted that it would be impossible for him to make “Blazing Saddles” today.

  43. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
    He, You, and I: WE all of US have the right to free speech. By no means are WE all of US required or obligated to agree with one another. A more apropos quote from a movie I do not know:
    ” America isn’t easy. America is advanced citizenship. You gotta want it bad, ’cause it’s gonna put up a fight. It’s gonna say “You want free speech? Let’s see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil, who’s standing center stage and advocating at the top of his lungs that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours. You want to claim this land as the land of the free? ” The American President

  44. 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.

    I am thankful that the greedy, the drunkards, the slanderers, and the swindlers aren’t campaigning for their own civil rights or this country would really be going to hell in a hand-basket. Pretty soon it will be common for the greedyanderers and the drunkardindlers to start wanting to cohabit and America will become a nation of lawyers and politicians, Oh wait……………………. :-p

  45. I was wondering when TTAG would find a reason to weigh in on the Ducky family. I guess I’m surprised that I agree with most of those sentiments.

    He said some bigoted and ignorant things (the latter particularly with respect to blacks before segregation), but should anyone be surprised? Incidentally, quoting a book for bigotry isn’t an excuse any more then quoting Mein Kamph is an excuse for ethnic cleansing. Religion may have tax exempt status but that’s about all.

    Freedom of speech means dumb statements can’t land you in jail, but it doesn’t mean you don’t face consequences. His consequences will probably involve even more publicity and money. So… shit, what was I saying again?

  46. “It’s certainly not the kind of language I’d expect from a “true Christian”; someone who loves the sinner but hates the sin. Nope. The comment was needlessly, heedlessly insensitive.”

    What does sensitivity have to do with Christianity? Was Jesus sensitive when he kicked the moneychangers asses out of the temple? These days people worry too damn much about offending some individual or group. Have we become a nation of pussies who can’t speak what we believe without being afraid of criticism?

    Isn’t it a little presumptuous to believe everybody should like everybody else?

  47. I support the right of gay people to get married because marriage, in the terms and manners about which they are talking, is nothing more or less than a contract. I believe that they have, as consenting adults, the right to incorporate with the legal recognition of the state.

    Do I think that gay marriage is morally correct?

    It’s none of my damn business, so long as their private problems don’t affect the public forum. And if that happens, they’ll have to get in line behind every cheating babydaddy and trailer-trash bottle blonde troll to get on the Maury Povich show. Homosexuality is a sin, sure, but so is adultery, lust, greed, gluttony, pride and a whole host of other things that straight people do.

    I’ll tell you, Gay marriage is a moot point… I’m waiting for the first cases of Gay Divorce, when the flagrant and massive gender bias of the divorce laws, and their overwhelming iniquity are laid bare. Which gay man is the wife and therefore gets the house, the kids, the car, the dog, and alimony payments for the rest of his life? Which gay man is the husband, so that the cops will know to lock his ass up the moment anyone says “Domestic violence?”

  48. When you see a kid in the mall with his hair cut into a Mohawk and died green you may say to yourself, “That’s weird… Certainly no one would choose to live like that!” But the undeniable fact is the kid did choose that haircut, even if it is incomprehensible to you. Perhaps he’s rebelling against authority, against his parents, or the Catholic priest who spanked him last year at the all boys school. Perhaps he’s angry with barbers. My point is he is exercising a lifestyle that I can’t understand but am not stupid enough to believe is “genetic”. Homosexuality is a choice. You can resist it. Cancer is not a choice. Skin color is not a choice. Resist them all you want to and you’re still sick or black or white, etc. I honestly believe than many gays get a thrill from the “naughtiness” of what they’re doing. If society ever truly accepted them it would spoil the deviant excitement. I’m convinced of it. And one more point. If there is a God in heaven homosexuality is clearly wicked. Sorry. Read the bible. Jesus didn’t speak about it, that is true, but his apostles (ever heard of Paul) sure did! What did they say? They said it was a disgusting and lustful perversion of God’s plan for mankind. Jesus never spoke against child molestation or arson either. Are they okay in the Lord’s eye?

    • If there is a God in heaven homosexuality is clearly wicked

      That would rather depend on which God (if any) is in Heaven (assuming such a place exists), would it not?

      • Well I’m not sure about Quetzaqutal the Winged Serpant God, but the Holy Bible of Christianity, the Koran of Islam, the Torah of Juedaism, and the teachings of Sid Hartha (Buhhda) and Hinduism all consider it evil. Infact, it’s considered a grave sin. A sin worthy of spiritual death. Now you may not believe in God. Okay, who am I to say? However l’ll provide two thoughts. First, if there’s no God then the entire world sprang from nothing. Poof! And second if there’s no God then we are purely biological creature who came from chemical reactions of various types. If this is true nature reins supreme and things like guilt and lust would have evolved out of us very early on as they serve no useful purpose towards an organisms survival.

        • First, if there’s no God then the entire world sprang from nothing. Poof!

          Incorrect. The formation and evolution of the Solar System is well understood, and astronomer can see planetary systems forming around protostars as we speak. No “poof!” needed.

          And second if there’s no God then we are purely biological creature who came from chemical reactions of various types. If this is true nature reins supreme and things like guilt and lust would have evolved out of us very early on as they serve no useful purpose towards an organisms survival.

          Incorrect. I suggest you read “The Selfish Gene”, by Richard Dawkins.

        • What Hal J is trying to say is this: Zero added to Zero = Something (infact it equals everything) as long as you say it very slowly. He doesn’t understand that time does NOT matter in mathematics or in physics. If you add nothing to nothing really slowly, over billions of years, it still amounts to nothing.

        • In fact, I’m pretty sure time doesn’t really exist. Everything exists at once, but our minds are constructed in a way that cannot perceive it that way, so we perceive serial time.

          In reality, we perceive past and future as something “not now”. That’s the wrong reality. The only reality is now.

        • If the only reality is “now” as you say then swallow some cianide. Do it now! You feel fine you say? Great. Nothing to worry about since everything consist of “now”. (sigh* It’s like debating children folks)

      • I agree. We have such a thing as “freedom of religion.” Believe it or not – not everyone is christian or religious. Wickedness to us is not wickedness to them. Since is it is not rape, or otherwise infringing upon the rights of others then it is not really our business yea? Not our business, and not the business of the state – not even the business of democratic process as it protected by the first amendment and non-infringing on the rights of others.

    • You bring up a good point. Equality is when nobody gies a shit anymore, and ‘the gays’ have to keep making a scene becasue that’s what it’s really about… I used to respect them when they did what they wanted and give anyone the finger if they didn’t like it. Now that they want endorsement, I can’t respect them anymore.

      I don’t support gay rights. I support human rights and the abolishment of government control over anything it has no legitimate authority to be contgrolling; like marriage.

      You really want to make the pesudo-christians mad, point out that the only two palces in the Bible that mention Polygmy, don’t say anything bad about it… Just like gun control isn’t really about guns, marriage control isn’t about marriage.

      Unless you recognize the ego trip of being the center of controversial attention, it seems confusing why gay people always have to announce it… “Hi, I’m Joe and I’m totally a rectum ranger!” Really? I needed to know you were gay? I don’t go around announcing how much I like boobs and vaginas. It’s just not appropriate conversation, especially during introduction… It’s the naughtiness. Attention whores.

      • Aw, someone who gets it. It’s the thrill of doing something nasty. Something forbidden. Heterosexuals participate in anal sex also and it is the “naughtiness” of what they are doing that turns them on so much. Is this genetic? Are straight people who enjoy this lustful thrill with the opposite sex in possession of a special gene? Of course not. It is hedenistic lust. The ancients wrote about it 3,000 years ago. Gays like to think their lifestyle is so avante garde, so modernistic, and we need to catch up with the times. The truth is that it’s the oldest thing under the sun. It has always been with us like murder and thievery. It will be with mankind until the end of time. Who ever you are Dustin Edward you have a sharp mind and perceive truth better than many with a high position in the world.

        • Are you suggesting that, when they get bored with the “same ol’, same ol”, they’ve move on to onanism and the final taboo, cannibalism?

          I suppose it’s possible, but I don’t really feel comfortable taking a position on this…

      • Since the gays started the attack on God , the Bible , and the Family , and moral values thay are not helping gun rights , or a better America , They have a sick and evil values and they are all dammed to HELL, unless they repent now.. God is holy and always RIGHT as CREATOR he makes the rules . and he knows best for us ..Since he has Holy standards anything less must go to hell or be destroyed. Because of his loving Grace has a way to be saved >…the CROSS of CHRIST is the path to HEAVEN ,, repent and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved… Says God. Christ paid for SIN . RECEIVE the GIFT.

        • They have a sick and evil values and they are all dammed to HELL

          Well, it could be worse…they could be damned…

      • This is a very accurate and on-point analysis. Like show-offs everywhere, they seek approval and adoration. REALLY? You expect me to “adore” THAT? Just shut up and mind your own business. If you have any.

  49. Phil is a smart guy. He didn’t just use the words anus and vagina. When asked what he thought to be sinful, he started with homosexuality and then proceeded to bestiality and then to sleeping around in general. He knew, saying this to a GQ reporter, how it would be written up. I suspect that he wanted an easy way out of his A&E contract.

    About these comments -wow! It is quite sad that the biggest measure of a “real Christian” these days is to be vehemently against the existence of homosexual relationships. I guess the only way to get to heaven now is to stop gay people from being legally married.

    Is showing everyone just how against homosexuality you are so much more important than defending your Constitutional Rights? We will lose all of our Constitutionally-guaranteed rights if we don’t stop this pointless bickering. After the 2nd Amendment, the rest will follow.

    Now if you will excuse me, I’m going to look around to see if I can figure out what stupid crap our government is trying to pull on us while we’re all so preoccupied with this foolishness.

    • “He knew, saying this to a GQ reporter, how it would be written up. I suspect that he wanted an easy way out of his A&E contract.”

      You make some good points; it had occurred to me also that Ol’ Phil was “pulling a Pee-Wee Herman” on A&E.

  50. Democrats have perfected the art of portraying their prejudice and hate speech as good things, while simultaneously saying that everybody who disagrees with them are subhuman and have no rights. It’s worse than racism, becaue it discriminates based on IQ; if your IQ is above room temperature, you should be either imprisoned, enslaved, or killed for daring to think.

  51. I’m starting to believe that gays should be required to get married, straights should be prohibited, and nobody should be allowed to reproduce.

  52. Probably your worst post in TTAG history, Robert. I’m with you on 99% of things, but for reasons others have very eloquently mentioned, this was one fell far short. Stick to guns.

    • I don’t know if you read the title of this article – but it is about guns. Its about how the media portray’s gun people. It is about the opinions of gun people. It directly addresses statements made by Mr. Robertson and statements made by progressive liberals and mainstream media and how they portray “gun people.” It also addresses derogatory statements made by both groups. Robert is promoting a common goal (gun rights) and the fact that many gays (yes gays) are gun people and we should all stand together in a common endeavor for liberty and rights.

  53. Your Article is complete a strawman and moronic. First you ARE NOT A CHRISTIAN…. I bet good money you don’t go to church so stop with your arrogant “True Christian” comment. The part where you say he is WRONG? HOW? Where is he wrong. If you read all the GQ quotes from Mr. Phil Robertson, he calls out ALL sinners, drunkards, adulterers, not just gay folk. He is not talking hate or judging. In fact he said he would not judge someone who is different, and he said WE WOULD BE BETTER OFF IF WE LOVE EACH OTHER AND GOD (that would be Jesus)…. HOW DARE HE! Being openly Christian and against homosexual acts (not the people) is not a crime or wrong, and FREE SPEECH IS A FAR MORE IMPRORTANT amendment than the 2nd amendment. There is nothing crass about Vagina Vs. Anus. It is true Mr. Robertson is expressing the fact that two men copulating is gross to people and factually not healthy. Sorry we were born this way. He is guilty of rampant heterosexuality. How dare he point out men and women fit together. No one says make homosexual acts a crime (which it use to be in many states and military), if it’s two consenting adults, in private and I hope, safely. However gay men spread HIV in North America and still do; it is not a healthy life style, but lets not get facts involved. Yes SIN IS SIN and we are all SINNERS and homosexuality is just one of them. Phil is not saying he is better than a Gay man or woman, and salvation is not assured except for one thing, FAITH IN JESUS CHRIST. I have no doubt Phil is a TRUE CHRISTIAN and the Bible tells us to talk about it, not bullied into silence. As far as you conflating this with GUNS…. IDIOTIC! How dare you.

    • I seem to remember something in the bible about the future having many people calling themselves “Christian” and “Christ like”…..then again I’m no minister. No student of scripture. I could be wrong. Infact I’m a terrible sinner who’s done much destroying in my short time on earth……what would I know? I’d bet you’re correct that Farago is No Christian. I’m sure he thinks he is.

    • I agree for the most part.

      “While I don’t share Robertson’s belief that being gay is a sin – at all – I support his right to be wrong, in public.”

      Robert is free to believe what he wants, but if he believes in any of the big 3 religions, then homosexuality is a sin just as many other things are that Christians, Jews, and Muslims partake. I think too many religious people have elevated themselves above the sin of homosexuality thinking it is a greater sin somehow.

      BTW- I support gay marriage, other than a small hang up over the word marriage. As long as government has a hand in marriage, we should all be equal under man-made laws, thus gays should be allowed this simple rite/right; however I will never support the special treatment of a group of people over another which seems to be exactly what we are seeing socially. My greatest fear is that we could see gay marriage rites being forced unto those with religious beliefs against it, by law or simply by fear of social repercussions.

      I saw nothing wrong with what Phil Robertson said, even if I disagree with some of the phrasing, because he shared his opinion/beliefs with conviction and did not sell out.

  54. Based on my experience, I think that the majority of homosexuals AREN’T hardline GLAAD members. They’re just normal people who want to be treated with respect, dignity, and equality under the law, and I’m completely fine with that.

    However, I am opposed to the gay rights lobby for two reasons. First, as I said before, I don’t think their strident, polarizing, divisive, hateful and intolerant (yes, hateful and intolerant) behavior represents the majority of homosexuals. Second, and more importantly, I strongly resent being called a bigot for simply disagreeing with their lifestyle on moral grounds. The gay rights activists literally HATE people like me because I’m a white, conservative, gun-owning Christian who thinks their behavior is immoral. Why should I support people who hate me, even though I AGREE WITH THEM from a legal standpoint? They’re on their own, as far as I’m concerned.

    As to Phil Robertson, I don’t believe he said anything “hateful” (seriously, toughen the f*ck up, America); however, it was an INCREDIBLY stupid idea for him to make those comments:
    1) He trusted a reporter to be fair and unbiased in matters of religion. That’s just as stupid as trusting a reporter to be fair and unbiased in matters of firearms.
    2) That reporter was writing for GQ…
    3) The first amendment doesn’t protect your job.
    4) This isn’t the 1800’s. Fire and brimstone sermons don’t work too well anymore. Telling people they are going to hell if they don’t repent from their sinful behavior doesn’t bring people to Christ in 21st century America. Typically (as evidenced by the comments here), it DOES THE COMPLETE OPPOSITE, driving would be converts away. The core message of Christianity isn’t judgment; It’s peace, hope, joy and love, which flow from the grace of Jesus Christ, who sacrificed himself on our behalf. Phil Robertson would have been wise to look to the example of Pope Francis, who said something along the lines of, “if homosexuals are seeking God, who am I to judge?”

    /end rant

  55. This is the answer:

    “Maybe we should take government entirely out of the marriage business. But if we’re not willing to do that, then everyone is going to have to be treated equally under the law.” – H.R. [Although I agree, H.R. actually said that here, so I fixed your citation. -Matt]

    Less regulation on social business which ultimately is not “government business.” If we can get government out of every single aspect of our lives, things will immediately begin improving.

    I commend Phil Robertson’s honesty. He has a right to his opinion as does everyone. Like my grandmother always said – “if you don’t like the answer to an opinion – then you shouldn’t ask for it.”

  56. As a gun owner I’m ashamed to be lumped together with so many selfish thinking individuals.

    The govt ‘allows’ marriage as a contract that comes with benefits. Since the govt is not supposed to have anything to do with religion, then the contract they allow should be just that, a contract, not having anything to do with religion. All the close minded arguments that “gays can get married if they want, but they shouldn’t have the same benefits’ is simply religion talking.

    It’s amazing how fast it goes from “we support gays with guns” to “as long as they stay in their own damned yard they should be happy with what they get”.

    I’m not fond of bigots that use the bible as an excuse to talk down to others as if it is some factual basis to live someones life. You have no right to tell anyone what contract they can sign, even more so when it comes to THEIR religion. Which of course many bible thumpers will immediately call a flag on because the other person’s bible isnt the hater’s bible. Despite all that, spew all the vitriol, hate, ‘facts’ that you want. Be someone that wants to deny the EXACT same rights to certain portions of the public because they don’t fit in your bible.

    Blacks had the same ‘right’ to a drink as whites not so long ago. They could just find a black drinking fountain which I’m sure would be just as good as the white one. When you can’t use the exact same right, then its not the same right.

    Selfish, immature, close minded people do nothing to change the antis mind about the entire gun rights crowd being a bunch of redneck ignorant hillbillies that just want to shoot things.

  57. Just for the record….the earliest instance of the term “gun nut ” that I have run into is from the memoir of lt. Col john george in “Shots Fired In Anger” (1947). He uses it as a simple descriptive of his love of the shooting sports and firearms.

  58. After finally getting caught up on all of these comments, I’ll throw in my thoughts …

    It is unfortunate that so many in this people in this country simply do not understand the concept of tolerance (including many of those who preach it, but are woefully intolerant and prejudiced themselves).

    Everybody has their own opinions on issues. There are people who dislike gun ownership, people who dislike gay marriage, people who dislike one or more religions, people who dislike various business practices, people who dislike consumption of various substances, and people who dislike a group of people based on a meaningless characteristic. There are numerous, endless examples of people who dislike things other people like. That’s simply the way it is, and most likely the way it always will be. That’s humanity. People are different. They were raised differently, they have different beliefs, different cultures, etc. That’s not the main problem.

    The main problem is that far, far too many of these people think that their belief justifies using government violence to enforce their belief. That, in my opinion, is the biggest problem. Not liking what someone else does is one thing; taking a step to initiate violence against them (via the government) is an entirely different matter.

    A second problem is that too many people believe it is perfectly acceptable to intimidate others and attempt to silence them (or outshout them), as opposed to attempting to have a rational discussion about the differences. We see this when people are upset and call for boycotts, firings, etc. whenever someone says something that offends them. Instead of a call for a discussion, it’s an attempt to silence the opposition.

    All of the above applies to both liberals and conservatives. I tend to think liberals are often more hypocritical, since they often preach tolerance and do not practice it. But conservatives are far from perfect themselves, and far too often they engage in practices that that they hate to see when liberals engage in them.

    There is a huge difference between believing that gay marriage is wrong vs. taking the additional step to say that legal recognition and special legal privileges should be given for heterosexual marriages but not for homosexual marriages. There’s also a huge difference between suggesting that the government should not discriminate regarding marriage vs. suggesting that a church should be coerced by the government into recognizing and performing any marriage.

    Similarly, there is a huge difference between saying that drug abuse is wrong vs. taking the additional step to say that the government should use violence and coercion to prevent people from consuming drugs.

    Likewise, there is a huge difference between saying that people should be paid a higher wage vs. using government coercion to force an employer to pay that higher wage.

    The examples are potentially endless.

    If we don’t understand tolerance, we are at perpetual war with each other through the violence of government and through our intimidation tactics. Neither of these is indicative of a healthy society.

  59. “That said, the remarks themselves were inexcusably crass.”

    This from the guy known for calling a Subaru a “flying vagina”? Sorry, Robert, but that’s congressional level…shall we be nice and say…inconsistency.

  60. You know, reading through the comments I just gotta say.. I was always curious what happens if you took the word, “Marriage” out of the Government completely. Instead, everybody gets a Domestic Partnership, with all the benefits of marriage currently attached. Now everybody is on equal footing. If people want to get, “Married,” then they can go to a church and do it proper.

    Seems to me this entire time this whole battle is really over the word, “Marriage,” and then telling gays they cant have the same rights as normal people. (That’s called treating them 2nd class, by the way.)

    • There’s a reason for going for actual “marriage”, rather than “something-exactly-like-marriage-but-not”. If you accept the fake marriage substitute, what happens later on when legislation is passed that has provisions affecting married people. How does it affect the kinda married people? Does it apply to them? Will all legislation always be assumed to apply to both? What if some future legislation specifically selects or exempts one or the other? Would that be legitimate?

      If instead it’s just one legal concept, then those concerns don’t arise.

  61. Militant sodomites…leftists… meh…. Left to their own devices, will all die off before its over with anyway. Good riddance.

  62. This train has left the station. The LGBT locomotive has a head of steam that is unstoppable now. I realize that and I believe that everyone commenting here knows it even if they don’t approve. What grinds my gears, though, it their co-opting the word “marriage.” I know that over history it has had different connotations but as long as anyone on this site has been alive, the male-female part of it has been the standard. We, the POG, complain about the left changing the meanings of words and this is another example. Give them all the rights of married couples but don’t call it what I have. It is not the same. How about a little contest for a new name?

    I do not dwell on the subject but I think almost all of us boys were somewhat gay earlier in our lives. At least in my case, between the ages of 5 and about 11, I didn’t like girls. If you only have two choices and eliminate one there is not much remaining.

  63. The comments have shifted somewhat to gay marriage. This wasn’t really what the debate was about but close enough. Here’s some personal info on me; I’m not gay and I’m also not married….therefore I don’t really have a dog in this fight. I do have an opinion and it’s that gay marriage is a tremendous insult to the sanctity and institution of marriage. Again, I admit to not being gay or married and maybe because of this I get a kick out of the debate; here’s why – You married people could end this gay marriage abomination tomorrow!! You have the largest voting block in America for God’s sake! It’s your institution. Your religions invented it. It’s the one thing christian, jew, moslem, white, black, etc could truly find common ground on! If you wouldn’t be so scared of someone calling you a bigot you’d send these homosexual-supporting politicians scattering before you like ducklings before a tiger. I’ve never seen anything to beat it. You married folk all mumble under your breath about how you don’t want Dan &Doug moving in next door and smooching in front of your children, yet you’re too afraid of someone calling you a name to effect change. Meanwhile gay activist parade down Main Street USA in a diaper waiving sex toys…..and you mumble about how something needs to be done before it’s too late. You married people have the overwhelming majority. You have the power plus plenty in reserve, but you don’t act because of fear….and that’s all evil needs to take root. Don’t expect men like me to fight this battle. We will support you but only when you stand up for your family institutions and say “Enough!”

      • Ah…interesting to see now who is judging who “in marriage” eh???

        Leftists are absolutely the most judgmental people in the world. I guess it seems from the self hate they seem to have. Kinda sad really.

        • Damn that was a good reply El Mac! Thanks. I’m pretty sure gay marriages won’t be all peaches-and-cream either. Divorce and marriage aren’t my area of expertise, I’ll admit, but marriage between a man and a woman predate recorded history. I’m guessing you straight married people hold the moral authority on this one. Be bold and you’ll easily win.

  64. Its a bit rough sometimes to stand up and be counted with the People Of the Gun in the fight for gun-rights when it seems like so many of them won’t stand with me for my right to equality.

    • You shouldn’t expect people to abandon their religious and cultural tenets just because you think they should. You are entitled to expect tolerance; no one is entitled to love, or even approval.

      • Basically, it is a non-sequitur. You’re free to believe with all your heart that I’m a black-hearted sinner for being born gay, but you should should be able to put basic human rights like equal government treatment of others above your personal likes and dislikes.

        I don’t care much for Rush Limbaugh(or Piers Morgan), for example, but if the government wanted to throw him in prison without trial or otherwise violate his Constitutionally protected human rights you could bet your bottom dollar I’d fight tooth and nail to stop that.

        • No no no. The problem is progressive sir. You people will never be tolerant. You are showing it now and can’t understand why America is all upset with you for the first time in 50 years….you pushed too hard ( no pun intended ). You have set yourselves above God and demanded those who oppose you be persecuted! What kind of fool you must be I can only guess. It is a watershed event what you are witnessing right now. CNN, FOX, ABC, even MSNBC are all over it. You made a miscalculation you can’t take back. You showed intolerance by accusing others of being intolerant (when they’ve been exceedingly tolerant in my opinion). This is a disaster for the GLAAD types. You have never experienced bigotry I suspect, but watch what looms on the horizon now. What a disaster!

        • Que tal! You are addressing an individual human being, and not a movement. Care to start again?

          You were employing the face-palm worthy faux pas, “you people”. You didn’t say it, but you employed it nonetheless.

        • It isn’t the “equality” issue with the militant sodomites, its the “superiority” issue that the militant sodomites have with with everyone else in the world that is the issue. That and the fact that the vast vast majority of them are solid Leftists.

        • Sab – Thank you for engaging in the conversation. I’ve experienced a similar difficulty – it’s difficult for me to support equality for homosexuals when it seems like so many of them think of me as some kind of howling savage for standing up for my rights. But I still do whenever I can. I doubt many of them will be anywhere to be found when it comes time to join me in defending the Second Amendment, but I guess that’s beside the point – allowing discrimination against them is still wrong.

          And the RKBA belongs to all Americans, homosexuals included, so you’re also fighting for own rights when you stand up in defense of the Second Amendment.

        • You have set yourselves above God

          Which of the thousands of Gods worshiped in human history would that be?

        • Sab, I think that the fight for “equality” has gotten so muddled and confusing that when one says that the are for “equality,” one should probably clarify their position.

          You wrote: “You’re free to believe with all your heart that I’m a black-hearted sinner for being born gay, but you should should be able to put basic human rights like equal government treatment of others above your personal likes and dislikes.” FWIW, that is something I wholeheartedly agree with and support.

          My opinion is that different people think “equality” means different things. In my experience, I’ve heard variations on these interpretations:

          (1) Some say that “equality” means that homosexual couples should be able to obtain a legal marriage and be entitled to the same legal privileges (those codified by law regarding inheritance, taxes, medical rights, power of attorney, etc.) that married heterosexual couples are entitled to under the law.

          (2) Others include what is in (1) but would also add “anti-discrimination” legislation, which would coerce persons into not being able to use one’s sexual orientation as a reason for denying employment, or business services, or other such things. This would make homosexuality a “protected class,” in the same way that (in many or all cases) persons are legally prohibited from discrimination based on gender, or race, or religion, or other such things.

          (3) Others would say that the fact that there is such a thing as “legal marriage” that grants special privileges to some persons but not others is, by itself, a problem. Legal marriage is effectively a legal social contract between two persons, and instead of the creation of a “one size fits all” legal marriage, consenting adults should be able to create such contracts as they see fit, as long as the parties involved consent to the terms. This would also include plural marriages, assuming all parties consent. It would not include, as some seem to believe, animals or children (since they are unable to give consent).

          (4) Another issue is not a legal one, but a cultural one. Some persons believe that homosexuals are flawed / defective / sinners / etc. … that they are “bad people” and/or worthy of disrespect. The push for “equality” includes a push to change these cultural attitudes, in some cases by public intimidation (e.g. boycotts, calls for firing people, etc.), in other cases by attempts at gentle persuasion, or scientific evidence, or other methods.

          In short, different persons have different views of what “equality” means.

          I suspect that culturally, there’s a large segment of the population that (as evidenced by many of the comments here) will simply not condone homosexuality and/or homosexual behavior, and never consider it either good or acceptable, regardless of any evidence presented. In a truly free country, that is their right, regardless of how wrong their opinion may be … in the same way that Rush Limbaugh, or Piers Morgan, or any other person can spout off what they want.

          IMO …. using the government – which operates on coercion and violence – to force the issue in either direction is wrong. Churches should not be forced to marry persons they do not wish to, and persons should not be forced to “not discriminate” against someone (even if that discrimination is reprehensible). At the same time, using the government to grant special legal privileges for one set of persons (heterosexual couples) and denying those privileges to another similar set of persons (homosexual couples) is absolutely unacceptable.

          In short … equal treatment under the law is ideal. Special treatment dictated by law – either for or against persons who are homosexual – is wrong.

          I think that too often, the “militant” types who are requesting government coercion on their behalf overshadow those who are truly working to achieve equality under the law.

  65. This guy is far from an idiot and most likely is sitting right where he wants to be. They were not happy with A&E as of late. They also had disputes with them previously when A&E wanted them to leave any mention of their religion off the show but they stood up to them and won (BTW what if any network asked someone to tone down or keep their gayness off a show?). I suspect they wanted out of their contract and all they had to do was state their beliefs.

    • Simple. they’d call GLAAD and other extremely vocal leaders in the GBLT community about said request to tone down, and make a huge stink over it, just as they have decided to do over Phil’s words, after twisting them.

  66. I like these thoughts a lot. Civility is severely lacking these days. Any call for it is a good one. 🙂

    We don’t agree on everything, Farago, but we agree on the things that are important methinks.

  67. *shrug* Phil’s entitled to think and express whatever he wants per the 1A. He entered into an agreement with A&E that says otherwise. Phil expresses unpopular views about gays to GQ. Contract terminated. Open and shut.

    • “Phil expresses unpopular views about gays to GQ.”

      Unpopular with the Progs, the Leftists, the Sodomites and their supporters…but heavily popular with the vast majority of those that do not fall within that snippet of life.

      • That is immaterial. A&E didn’t like what was said and Phil is in a binding agreement to them, one that he willingly entered. Ergo, he’s gone. Entirely their call. It may cost A&E ratings, that’s their loss.

        I couldn’t give two inflamed bowel movements about Phil’s/A&E’s/LGBLTWTFBBQ advocates’/your opinion of homosexuality in regards to this whole non-event. If there was this much outrage over the recent federal gov’t admissions that the NSA’s widespread and unconstitutional surveillance has done precisely jack and dick, there would be a bloodied guillotine sitting on Capitol Hill.

        There isn’t. Instead, this fucking reality show nonsense qualifies as news. My abstinence from cable TV has continued for almost 8 years now precisely because of televised offal like this and I don’t see that changing any time soon.

        • Well, on all of that, we certainly agree. Except the part about it being “immaterial” as to what he said.

          As for A&E, I could care less what they do. I don’t even watch the show.

          As for Phil, bravo.

    • Fearing economic boycott, A&E thought: “Gays (7%) and seriously deluded liberals (18%, for a total of 25% – I’m more or less making the figures up); we CAN’T AFFORD to lose their business!”

      It never once occurred to them that 100% – 25% = 75%, did it?

  68. Get the government out of the marriage business COMPLETELY. Remove licensing, remove tax breaks, repeal the 16th Amendment, implement the Fair Tax, everyone gets the same taxation, for end of life decisions, everyone write up a legal document on who can authorize such actions and who is allowed to see them in the hospital. People then share their relationships with the people they love, religious folk consecrate their marriage before God, nonreligious folk do whatever they want with whatever people will wed them, (not forcing any church, business, or group to do so) and everyone leaves everyone the fuck alone. The end.

    • EagleScout87 … other than the Fair Tax, I’m with you. I don’t trust the folks who run government to not expand that tax wildly out of control, as they’ve done with virtually everything else. There are other revenue-raising methods that could be used (e.g. a small tax on the multi-state lotteries that exist, user fees whenever possible, etc.).

      • Spain is looking into taxing sunshine. Black boxes will soon be in all new cars – a per-mile tax.

        They’ll figure out a way to tax air; they want it ALL. Overthrow the sons-of-bitches or reap the whirlwind!

        • Maryland already has what people are calling a “rain tax” (based on “impervious surfaces” on one’s property). Not much surprises me anymore as far as the ways governments steal money from people.

  69. I agree that “gun nut” is the most slanderous term that the gun grabbers can come up with for us. It’s their slur of choice.

    One option worth considering is to make it “our own” word, like what African-Americans, LGBT people, and other persecuted groups have done with slurs directed at them.

    It would certainly take the sting out that word if we used it amongst ourselves. I for one, have already been doing this for years. I’ll proudly admit that I’m a gun nut.

  70. This thread is a lot like the gun show. You may go with some normal people but there’s always that guy selling Nazi stuff in the corner you try to keep your girlfriend from seeing. I really wish we could separate all of the cultural bullshit from RKBA, because if we don’t we will probably lose the 2A in the next couple of decades. You are turning off entire generations from guns because they don’t want to be associated with old white bible-thumping bigots (who are very uncool to an 18 year old). You also give liberals a feeling of accomplishment because now they aren’t just taking away guns from hunters, they are taking it away from a bunch of racists and gay haters. Guess what, you can’t rely on a political movement where most of the members are in AARP to protect your gun rights forever, they will all be dead and buried in the next 30 years.

    • Exactly. Eventually all the OFWG’s who make up so much of the conservative base are going to die. They are old after all. And what they believed and what they voted for isn’t going to matter.

      Right now, the best friends the RKBA can find are gun-totin’ liberals.

  71. I love the idea that only gay people practice SODOMY!!!

    That’s priceless.

    What a bunch of hateful ignorance on display in this thread. People are people and they should have the same rights as any other consenting adults. Claiming that the institution of marriage has been set for thousands of years, etc is clearly not true.

    Polygamy has been practiced for thousands of years and continues up to this very day. Gay marriage as well including gay marriage approved of by the early catholic church! (source: http://rense.com/general50/cath.htm). The idea that 1 man and 1 woman is somehow a sacrosanct institution is pure wishful thinking.

  72. I’ve got say, I’m impressed that the new server software can handle this many comments. A year ago, a post will more than 150 comments would either crash my phone’s browser or bringing it to a slide-showy chug. Now, just takes a little longer to load. Nice.

    • It does still have limitations. Let someone drop an embedded YouTube video into a comment, and it’ll lock up tighter than a drum.

      • Yea, all the bells&whistles do tend to clog the drain lines from time to time. Over at Sayanything Rob has problems with embedded videos which automatically start playing each time you move around in comment threads, plays hob with a lot of people’s computers and whatnot.

  73. Perhaps it’s because I grew up in a medical household, have two degrees in biology. and am an adult, but I don’t regard “vagina” and “anus” as dirty words. Anyone who does is unlikely to have a level-headed opinion on Robertson’s interview.

    Reading a so-called 2nd Amendment advocate throwing Robertson under a bus for having used proper anatomical nouns is as disgusting to me as watching such individuals throw Zimmerman under a bus for having the audacity to exercise his natural right to self defense.

    • Its about as bad as not being able to call a firearm a “weapon” for fear of offending someone.

      PC bullshit is just that, BULLSHIT. Nut the hell up America and grow some skin.

    • The reason those words offend others is because the thought of what he described is offensive….even to those doing it. Some shrug off what God calls as wrong but when they read the description of the unnatural act they cannot deny it is repulsive. He described what they are doing in biological terms. They cannot have this picture in the pop cultures mind….the description of what they are doing may scare others…Unnatural by definition means it is not normal or how the body was designed. He told the emperor he has no clothes….how dare he! SMH

      • “Unnatural by definition means it is not normal or how the body was designed.”

        LOL. This is where your train jumped the track. Over here, a peg. Over there, a hole. Round, round. Everybody knows enough to put the round peg in the round hole.

        You should have left well enough alone. 😉

  74. Wow… There is an awful lot of anger here. Why? Look at the big picture. There is no reason to give a hot damn what anyone else does if it is not hurting you. No matter what it is. Enjoy your freedom, allow others it enjoy theirs, and we will all be happy. 🙂

  75. “The recent flap about Duck Dynasty star Phil Robertson’s comments on homosexuality got me thinking. While I don’t share Robertson’s belief that being gay is a sin – at all – I support his right to be wrong, in public.”

    When did God come down from heaven and confirm your belief that homosexuality is not “wrong”? At what point did a penis and an anus start making babies? At what point did a vagina and another vagina start propigating infants to stay the species? If being a homo is a sin or not is up to God and God alone, we are not here to judge. But you and all the other “Crunchy Granola Kids…” seem to think you have it all figured out. Seem to think you know what is and is not. When was the last time you tried living your life on someone elses terms? Terms other than what YOU want? Ever tried living your life by a set of rules that has worked for billions over more than a thousand years? No but you seem to think yourself intelligent enuf to knock those sets of rules. There are things bigger than yourself and your ego in the universe, get over it.

  76. Whats funny is I bet 90% of the holy almighty Christians posting about how homsexuality is a sin have practiced sex outside of wedlock, or the countless other “grave sins” .
    GTFO of here with that.
    You dont approve? Cool, thats your right.
    Believe it or not, not everyone is a hardcore christian who can do no evil.
    This is why extremely religious people drive me nuts. The same people going on about “them gays are militant and want to press their sexuality on people” are the same people being militant about pressing their religion on everyone.
    I want none of it. Im not gay but what they do is their own business. Live and let live.
    Youll continue pressing your judgemental religion on others though and the world will keep turning.

    • You just made my point. While I am a Christian, I’m far far from perfect. No Christian is perfect, no one of any religion is perfect. No one with any other faith is perfect either. But God offers us a way out….and only one way out. I stand by your right not to take that route and I wouldn’t force my way upon you.

      But that anger you espouse towards “Christians”…I wonder, who is forcing that on you?

      As for the sodomites, if they want to go forth and sin amongst themselves in their bedroom, well have at it. Where I draw the line is when they try and force it down our throats…force their choice of filth into the mainstream…into virtually every TV show, into my children’s classroom, into music, into theater, into movies, into pro sports, etc.

      I refuse to accept their twisted form of self hate as normal, nay, superior.

      • …into virtually every TV show…into music, into theater, into movies,

        Damn that 1st Amendment! Will the granting of freedoms to those with whom we disagree ever stop?

      • What anger towards christians? I said they drive me crazy, just like my wife drives me crazy sometimes.
        I was raised christian, went to christian private school from 4th to 10th grade, theres no anger towards Christianity, just thr fact they tend to be some of the most judgemental, hateful and often times hypocritical people ive ever met.

      • Also what you are saying is there shouldnt be all those TV sermons or religious channels, darn them for shoving their religion down our throats!

      • Me too!
        I’m tired of all these libertines running around with short little skirts that almost show their butts off. And low cut blouses that reveal boobies and make me think impure thoughts. And it’s everywhere – on billboards, on TV, and it even happens at the local supermarket!
        Worse yet, sometimes I even talk to some of these women and get their phone numbers! I’m just unable to resist the temptation!
        How dare they draw me into their filthy, sin-filled behavior?
        Oh the humanity!

        Oh, wait… on second thought, maybe I don’t mind taking a long look when a shapely girl in painted-on jeans walks by.

  77. Mr Farago? If you are worried about being “insensitive” to an enemy you have already lost. As for the Bible, it says what it says. How people feel about it is irrelevant.

  78. Unsubscribed. I’m kinda done with all the Leftist, pro-sodomite manlove going on here.

    Don’t forget your condoms boys…HIV is waiting for ya.

    • How charming.

      Don’t forget your condoms boys…HIV is waiting for ya.

      Rather reminds me of gun grabbers writing that they hope pro-gun advocates will be shot.

      Birds of a feather, yes?

        • The internet lets people say, without restraint, things that would get them punched in the face in real life.

      • he is just saying how diseases come from sex outside of marriage between one man and one woman.

        he is not hating or wishing ill.

      • Nonsense. He said to endulge in gay behavior if you’d like. Gun grabbers never say, “Own any gun you like.” All El Mac was pointing out is that there’s consequence for this behavior. If you think AIDS doesn’t await homosexuals then you have your head in the sand. It is an epidemic sir! Anal sex is extremely prone to the transmission of blood born desease. You represent ignorance.

        • True, but HIV can be spread by any intercourse. Straight people get infected with it too.

          And just because one is homosexual doesn’t mean he or she has HIV. Moreover, if two uninfected homosexual people make a long term commitment to be in a monogamous relationship with each other, doesn’t the chance that either of them will get HIV become just about zero?

      • If a guy can’t accept a little spirited disagreement, that’s on him.

        But it just so happens that the People of the Gun include a lot of libertarians and even some outright howling liberals… and perhaps even some homosexuals.
        I welcome them all – the Bill of Rights belongs to all of us.

    • Gun rights…phhht. A millionaire is being fired from a “reality” show! That’s an example on someone’s rights really being violated.

    • No, it’s #3. But it’s well on its way. Up to 441 with this comment.

      Ahead of it are Oops: Red Jacket Firearms Loses Their FFL at 483 and BREAKING: Illinois Bill to Ban All Modern Firearms at 566.

      That first one is cheating a bit though, because it’s got some age on it. The Red Jacket post is from exactly 2 years ago, Dec 23, 2011, and the most recent comment was only 15 days ago. It’s the fourth result on my Google page when I type in “red jacket firearms.” So it continues to get a couple hundred hits every single day.

      The Illinois post is actually a little more interesting. It posted on January 1, 2013. First, it turns out it only has 561 comments, after I went and looked and deleted 5 spams. But with the exception of one guy that trolled through in September and left 3 comments, every single one of those 558 remaining comments happened in only 12 days. The most recent comment (other than those three) was on January 13th. Kinda funny how it went absolutely silent after that.

      Anyway, there’s your peek behind the curtain.

  79. 431 comments!!!!!!!!!!!!!! wow thats got to be a ttag record.

    its sad that our country is coming to this. also very sad that we the people of the gun community are being divided over an issue that liberals created.

  80. This isn’t the first time that Christianity has been under attack. Christ himself was nailed to a cross. Phil Robertson, an imperfect child of Christ and PC busting outspoken personality, spoke his mind. I have not yet seen where his contract with A&E forbade him to do so. You may not agree that homosexuality is a sin but the Bible says it is an abomination. The Bible is not a cafeteria system where you get to pick and choose the rules. Of course a sinner can receive salvation and get into heaven. The thing is, to be a Christian, you’re supposed to live your new life being “Christ like.” I’m not sure that continuing to live in sin in defiance of Christ qualifies. Is it good enough to accept Christ, yet reject the teachings of the Bible? The noisemakers can continue to call me a crazy Christian or a Gun Nut or whatever label they choose to be exclusively inclusive. All these fringe hurt feelings are like the death from 1000 cuts. Folks need to GROW A SET and STHU. I’m a fat guy, heck I’ve been fat since before fat was cool. I have lost weight and gained it back without trying yet I can maintain my weight when I’m fat. My body wants to be this way. Should I get all offended everytime someone says I should lose weight? Heck no. Deal with it. Pretty soon we won’t be allowed to speak at all. What a boring place this planet will be then.

    • Just to add… I am not against the government sanctioning gay marriage. I believe that the civil right of gays to marry is there and should be recognized, even though I do not agree with it. This is the separation of church and state that we keep hearing about. This is what separates us from theocracies like Islamic state religions.

  81. Too far down, guess this is unlikely to be read.

    But, to RF:

    If the core readership of WaPo is savaging you verbally, you are 1) important enough to get their attention, so you are effective, and 2) on the side of decency and freedom. The hatred of villains is the highest badge of honor.

    Hold your head high.

    • I always figured you are only gonna take fire when you are over the target and doing damage, otherwise they will save the ammo and let you fly on by.

  82. What Phil did is quote his faith’s God who said homosexuality is a sin. Everyone’s heard that one before. He appealed to how God is offended by homosexuality which pro-gay folks shrug off. He then pulls something from a natural argument that even homosexuals do not like to let out….they prefer something unnatural and even they are repulsed to read a description of what they do. Get it? They are repulsed by using biological description of their preference…but yet they scream that is vile? They are doing it? Lastly Phil presented the gospel message to the author and they actually published it in GQ. God uses all things in this world to bring Him glory. Way to go Phil!!

    • According to the Bible, Phil is right. Homosexual intercourse is a sin. And what about those of you who’ve inserted your penis into a vagina that you weren’t married to? Isn’t that also a sin? You’d never do that, you say? Not even once? Not even on prom night? Not even when you were engaged to her and you knew you were getting married in a month, but you just couldn’t wait?
      Those who are so worried about purity should take a long look in the mirror first. Also, we’re not governed by the Bible in this country. Whether someone’s behavior is sinful or not is completely irrelevant in terms of how they should be treated by the law.

      Phil’s right to say what he believes is protected by the First Amendment. His simple statements about his faith are not hate speech. He didn’t advocate harming anyone, he just said what he believes. You can totally disagree with him, but if you value liberty, then you have to respect his right to his opinion. A&E may not like his opinion, but that’s a private dispute between them and the Robertsons. And really they should have seen this coming. The Robertsons frequently pray in the show and make no effort to conceal their faith. It shouldn’t have surprised A&E one bit that something like this would eventually come up.

    • Newsflash: nature is replete with examples of same-sex intercourse. You’re welcome to consider the behavior of animals repugnant, amoral or undignified, but “unnatural” is a bit of a stretch.

      • I forget the 19th century naturalist name, but he was famous. He wrote about observing penguins at the South Pole having sex with dead penguins. So what? They’re stupid penguins and you’re a human being. They are slaves to their instinct. You have free will. They can’t discern morality or right or wrong, they just penguins! Now by your logic I could justify necrophilia because a stupid penguin did it. Brilliant. And actually homosexual sex is exceeding rare in the animal kingdom. And it never, repeat never, creates anything.

  83. What does God say about it? For this cause gave them up unto VILE affections: for even their women did change the NATURAL use into that which is against nature. And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman , BURNED in their lust one toward another; men with men working that wich is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge GOD gave them over to a REPROBATE mind, to do those things which are not convenient. And knowing the judgment of GOD, that they which commit such things are worthy of DEATH, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them. NOW GOD says REPENT or be dammed forever!

    • Do happen to have an autographed first edition of the Bible? I know someone who might pay a fortune, depending on the condition.

      I find this fundamental Christianist stuff SO one-dimensional… did you know two-dimensional beings could not be aware of their surroundings, could not be aware of other two-dimensional beings right next to them? ANGELS? Forget it; they could not perceive them!

      But hey, if you’ve got a hole in your soul that big to fill up, go for it!

      • There is really no point, you may as well try to talk someone in al qaeda out of their beliefs. Religious extremist crazy is crazy no matter what color they are, and all you can hope is when they go off we are not dragged down with them. The worst part is most of these guys are fudds who would sell us out in a AWB because they just care about their duck guns, the same way they did in the 80’s and 90’s. I feel like TTAG is getting crossposts from Stormfront or Free Republic, and it just tarnishes the reputation of all gun owners by association.

      • Throw away the great thinkers of history. Toss out the philosophers. CS Lewis…. What did he know. Mother Theresa…..crazy old woman. All the Saints. The Founding Fathers whether Christian, Deist, or Aethist…. Discard them all!!! Some guy named William Burke has figured out the meaning of life right here on TTAG. Close the Theological Colleges people. You’re just a chemical reaction made by adding nothing to nothing. You’re an accident. Simple! You are living your brief, meaningless, existence on a dark, cooling star in the middle of infinite nothingness. The next smartest creature is licking blades of grass to get ants out of a hole while we split the atom and send ourselves into space, but we’re really just the same thing. No judgement….tttttrrrrusttt mmee! William Burke says so. Enjoy each others backsides. I’ll trust to the Bible.

        • Written by MEN, not God. MY god is silent, and wise beyond mere words. Wise beyond mere worlds of men. My God is knowledge and wisdom. My God is Peace.

  84. Homosexual desire is not sin. It is temptation. Homosexual sex is sin. A grave sin according to the Bible. A sin worthy of both physical and spiritual death. All mankind have had to endure temptation. This is nothing new. Nor is it genetically inflicted upon an individual. I’m straight and I don’t have lust for those of my own gender. But I know it is a choice nonetheless. A guy with his hair cut into a Mohawk and dyed flourescent green is also a choice. I can’t imagine why he’s choose to be like that, but it isn’t genetic. He sits down with clippers and green dye and makes his life what it is. I don’t understand it but am not foolish enough to believe he has a “special gene”. He does have different experiences than me. Perhaps he’s rebelling against his barber, or his parents who made him keep his hair cut nicely, or authority in general…but it IS a form of rebellion. Perhaps he likes the way it shocks people to see a flourescent green punk-rocker, I can’t imagine why, but it isn’t genetic! Gays lust for one another because of the “naughtiness” of the act. That’s where the thrill lies. It’s a nasty, hedonistic, excitement. Heterosexuals who engage in anal sex like it for the same reason….it’s the deviance of what’s occurring. It isn’t love. It is lust. One more thing: it carries a curse! This may sound absurd, but the bible mentions curses thousands of times. God will literally ruin your life for engaging in it. You may look at someone like Anderson Cooper and say, “His life seems to be pretty good!” But wait!! Be patient! The final chapters on Anderson Cooper haven’t been written yet. Also God may be allowing him mercy, perhaps he’s not engaging in the act of intercourse, yet still considers himself gay. Or maybe God has abandoned him to his sin for a time but in the end he will repent or be destroyed. I’ve seen this many, many, times. I don’t wish to pick on Anderson Cooper. I bid him well. But the wages for continued sin, be it gay sex or stealing or lying or adultery or etc. is death.

    • Dismissing all gay relationships as hedonistic lust is a pretty naive and superficial characterization. Certainly some will fall into that bucket, but the same can be said about hetero relationships.

      Meanwhile, death is more than the “wages for continued sin;” it is the inevitable cost of living. All of us, without exception, will lose everything and die alone in the end. Even if we pass in the presence of loved ones, death is, after all, a personal journey.

      • All homosexual sex is hedonistic. Just as all stealing is thievery. There are however different motives for each. A man may steal out of greed or he may steal to feed his starving children. In one of those cases he sinned with quite noble intentions. He’s still a thief. Gays are capable of love (and long for it) and they are capable of hate, just as is true of all people. That’s why homosexuality is so utterly destructive to your spirit. For some it’s just lust. But for others it’s like the man stealing because his kids are starving. He’s torn morally between two things he wants and needs. Temptation is the true culprit in this disguised as love to fool the gullible. Then the destruction follows.

      • Another thought. Actually if Christianity is true you are created for eternity. You won’t die. CS Lewis said he realized when he was an aethist that, “the horror of the Christian universe was that there’s no door marked ‘Exit'”. Even suicide only speeds up the inevitable. So I disagree that I will ever die. Here’s another great quote by Lewis – “You do not have a soul. You ARE a soul, you have a body.”

        • There is no death. There is no time. God is what you would call RIGHT NOW.

          Hear my words right now: do not misjudge me, understand me.

          What you call “God” is only the moment of peace and understanding.

        • Honestly, I can’t even begin to follow your line of reasoning on homosexuality; we are all everlasting souls that will never die … unless we happen to cave to the “temptation” of homosexual acts and then “death” and “destruction” are the price to pay? My head hurts from the contradictions. 🙂

          Anyway, we’re clearly not going to agree on this one. I’ll just add that the gay couples I know (of the committed, monogamous variety) tend to model all the traits and behaviors of a couple in love more openly and honestly than the majority of my hetero friends. Personally, I think it’s because, in the constant presence of widespread social disapproval, choosing to be openly gay requires a level of self-acceptance that most people do not easily learn.

          I did like the Lewis quotes, though. They remind me of Bill Hicks: “Today a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration, that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively, there is no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and we are the imagination of ourselves. Here’s Tom with the Weather.”

          Life’s more beautiful when you stop worrying about whether someone else is “doing it wrong” and simply consider them a fellow traveller who maybe has taken a few roads you never would, and you can sit down over a beer and swap stories about the great things you’ve experienced on your respective journeys. My $.02.

        • “I did like the Lewis quotes, though. They remind me of Bill Hicks: “Today a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration, that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively, there is no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and we are the imagination of ourselves. Here’s Tom with the Weather.”

          Bill Hicks’ moment in the sun. I knew this, yet he took my breath away in expressing it. So much of what we regard as solid and real is anything but. Why can’t I put my arm through this table, this wall; why don’t I fall through the floor? 99.9999% of all is empty space.

          Frankly, I have come to realization that the answer, mostly, is “electrical charges”. I think Tesla would agree. He and his pigeon-bride.

        • How did things work out in the end for the great philosopher Bill Hicks? He insulted God greatly and got some chuckles….but how did the final chapters play out for him? Your comment virtually cries out for us to say, “Look how noble he is.” You are merely a fool.

        • I want to ,have seen lots men die, many die fast, but we have one big tough Marine, who stepped on a land mine , long story short , he yelled as he died help me , I am sinking into HELL, I see the FIRE , he had both legs gone, and he was not joking… you gays and others take note HELL IS REAL ………..

  85. First off there’s little doubt in my mind, Phil Robertson’s interpretation of Christian scripture is impeccable.

    However that will cut no ice with a non-Christian such as myself. What he has said, basically, is “this is what Christianity says.” And I agree with that. That is indeed what Christianity says.

    He’s made no case whatsoever that it’s actually true.

    As someone said a hundred comments or so ago, “equality” is one of those words that seems to mean different things to different people, and I will add “right” is another one. People have a right to equal treatment before the law–which is to say, they can expect the law to apply the same to them as it does to anyone else. That means that gays should be able to pick a life partner and have *exactly the same legal privileges* everyone else has, accorded to that choice. (What those privileges should be is a different question–but they should be identical, whatever they are, when comparing gays to straights.)

    What a gay cannot expect is for a Christian (or anyone of any creed whatsoever) to approve of what they do in the privacy of their bedroom. They SHOULD expect to be left the hell alone as long as it’s consenting adults. If someone comes along and says “well, that act you performed the other night is, according to my religion, a sin” then… well, big fricking deal. As long as the guy saying it doesn’t propose to somehow *enforce* it, it’s not a problem.

    • I should add I don’t believe people should be forced to do business with people they do not approve of–even if they disapprove of them for stupid reasons. So the wedding cake case would have been thrown out of my court.

    • One has no right to “approval” from ANYONE. It has to be EARNED. But that’s not enough; giving up under stress or debate does not constitute “agreement”. IT MUST BE AUTHENTIC AND GENUINE. Something, somewhere, is scoring you on your performance in life. That person is NOT God; that person is your core of purity, which you (which means everyone, not just you) must make right, eventually.

      Life is a Final Exam. If you don’t get it right, you get another lifetime to “get ‘r’ done”. This happens over and over and over again, until you gain the wisdom, and experience the behavior to conduct your life RIGHT.

      I’m not there yet, but I have the feeling I’m close. A couple more go-rounds. Maybe.

  86. It’s hardly a new sport to ask Christians (or Jews for that matter) about their beliefs in order to punish them for their answers. I fail to see any correlation between guns, Second Amendment Rights, and homosexuality. Left wing liberals seem to be the most prominent and powerful of our gun rights enemies, they also are extremely pro gay. Are we foolish enough to think throwing in with them on this issue will benefit us?

    • My argument is that there is a segment of our population that’s being discriminated against by the law. I’m not arguing that they should be “given” anything or that anyone should throw in with anyone, just that full equality under the law be restored.

    • Personally, I challenge their beliefs, not their answers. It’s the belief that I want them to examine, from every angle. I want them to reason by challenging every belief system. I’m not looking to convert them.

  87. Male + female = human population and superior societal structure. Male + male = death.
    Don’t care what people do behind closed doors, but don’t call it marriage.

  88. “More than that, gun owners cannot afford to be anything other than completely inclusive. We don’t have to agree with or even like our fellow gun owners…or non-gun owners for that matter. But our rights depend on taking the moral high ground and leaving our divisive beliefs below. Or at least voicing them with respect. As Benjamin Franklin put it, “We must, indeed, all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.” Literally.”

    That about covers it for me.

    Btw…for those sure that allowing gay people to wed will destroy the institution of marriage, how’s your marriage going? Gay marriage is legal now in multiple states, even if it isn’t in your state. So how much has your marriage been destroyed by it? Just curious.

    Cause mine hasn’t changed one iota. It’s still as sanctified, close, wonderful and special as it always was.

    Go figure.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here